Based on the experience of real-life Auschwitz prisoner Dita Kraus, this graphic novel tells the incredible story of a girl who risked her life to keep the magic of books alive during the Holocaust.
Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz.
Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope.
Antonio Iturbe is a novelist and journalist. He interviewed Dita Kraus, the real-life librarian of Auschwitz, for The Librarian of Auschwitz. His other books include The Prince of the Skies.
Lilit Žekulin Thwaites is an award-winning Melbourne-based literary translator (Spanish>English), and an honorary research fellow in contemporary Spanish literature at La Trobe University. Her book-length translations include the bestselling The Librarian of Auschwitz (Antonio Iturbe, 2017), Australian Connection (multiple authors, 2019), and two futuristic novels by Rosa Montero, Tears in Rain (2012), and Weight of the Heart. (2016). Her translations of short stories, essays and the occasional poem have been published in journals and anthologies. She presents sessions at writers’ festivals, gives talks on Spain-related and translation topics, and organises visits to Australia by Spanish-speaking writers. In 2016, she was awarded Spain’s Order of Civil Merit for her promotion of Spanish culture in Australia.
Salva Rubio is a Spanish author and historian. His credits include the graphic novels Monet: Itinerant of Light and The Photographer of Mauthausen.
Loreto Aroca is a Spanish artist and a graduate of the University of Castilla-La Mancha. She previously won the school’s Luna de Aire Award, honoring the best poetry aimed at children, for her and Fran Pintadera’s book Portrait of the Pinzón Family (Retrato de la familia Pinzón).
