Vintage International Series

Tells the stories of three ordinary twentieth-century Germans; Helmut, a young photographer in Berlin in the '30s who uses his craft to express his patriotic fervour; Lore, a twelve year old girl who in 1945 guides her young siblings across Germany; and Micha, a teacher obsessed with his grandfather's role in the war.

Field Study

by Rachel Seiffert

Published 4 March 2004

With a range of settings as diverse as the Scottish seaside and post-Communist eastern Germany, Seiffert uses the locations of these stories to bring her characters into relief. Powerfully evoking our human need for connection, Field Study takes us on journeys that demonstrate both the fragility and adaptability of our emotions. From a family that fears upsetting their little boy by moving house, to a wife who refuses to accept her husband's condemnation of his own father; from a student conducting his scientific graduate studies of eastern European pollution to a wartime mother's escape as she carries her children across a swollen river, Seiffert isolates and captures not only the underlying and compelling sorrow of love, but also the joy and desire for that love that keeps us alive.

The Walk Home

by Rachel Seiffert

Published 1 January 2014

Stevie hasn't set foot in his home town for years, and he can’t decide whether to let his family—what’s left of them, anyway—know he’s back. He wasn’t the first to cut and run—in their own ways, his mother, his father, and his uncle all fled before he did—but should he be the first to come home?

Moving between Stevie’s life as a construction worker in present-day Glasgow and the story of his parents when they were young, The Walk Home is a heartbreakingly powerful novel about the risks of love, and the madness and betrayals that can split a family. Gripping, haunting and, ultimately, hopeful, here is a piercingly honest story about the journey home—and the people there waiting for you.

Afterwards

by Rachel Seiffert

Published 10 July 2007

To love someone, need you know everything about them?

When Alice and Joseph meet, they fall quickly into a tentative but serious relationship. Both are still young and hopeful of each other, but each brings with them an emotional burden. Alice's family is full of absences and Joseph harbours an unspeakable secret from his time in the army in Northern Ireland.

When Alice's widowed grandfather begins to tell Joseph about his RAF experiences in 1950s Kenya, something still raw is tapped in Joseph; his reaction to the older man's unburdening of guilt is both unexpected and devastating for them all.

A Boy in Winter

by Rachel Seiffert

Published 1 June 2017

From the Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Dark Room, an extraordinary new novel: `A spellbinding evocation of fear and threat tinged with the possibility of hope and change' - Philippe Sands, author of East West Street

Early on a grey November morning in 1941, only weeks after the German invasion, a small Ukrainian town is overrun by the SS. A Boy In Winter tells of the three days that follow and the lives that are overturned in the process. And in the midst of it all is the determined boy Yankel who will throw his and his young brother's chances of surviving to strangers.

A Boy In Winter is a story of hope when all is lost, and of mercy when the times have none.

'Superb, delicately poised' FT

'Magnificent' Linda Grant

'A joy to read ' Helen Dunmore

Lore

by Rachel Seiffert

Published 29 January 2013