Kim Sherwood’s extraordinary first novel is a powerful statement of intent. Testament is a prize-winning literary timeslip novel about what happens after you survive. A young woman uncovers the truth about her family’s past as Hungarian Jews who came to Britain in 1945. Beautifully written, moving and hopeful, it crosses the tidemark where the third generation meets the first, finding a new language to express love, loss and our place within history.

This event is part of Essex Book Festival’s Secret Water weekend in various venues in Harwich, with a whole day of activity at Harwich Redoubt.

@kimtsherwood

An extraordinary book; sad but optimistic, that enshrines the human spirit. I was so moved by the way it shows blessed creativity thriving even in the depths of hell. Patrick Gale, author of A Place Called Winter

Testament is a masterfully composed and ambitious novel that really grips its reader – intense, full of hard-researched detail and vivid, original language. It is a remarkable first book that avoids the trap of many Holocaust books by understanding the idea of responsibility beyond the original trauma. George Szirtes, International Man Booker Prize-winning translator of The World Goes On

What a story. What a writer. Beautifully told and crafted Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz

A remarkably powerful, moving, assured and beautiful novel heralding the debut of a major writer. I couldn’t be more impressed. Robert Drewe