"Ilse Aichiner was born to a Jewish mother in Vienna in 1921. Prior to 1939 her Aunt Klara waited for the family in London, but only Ilse's twin sister, Helga, escaped on the last 'Kindertransport'. Ilse remained. She survived, and published 'The Greater hope' in 1948. The novel reflects Ilse Aichinger's experience of anti-Semitism as a young woman in Nazi Austria, and through her extraordinary use of language the author not only captures the horror and the humanity of that experience, but also transcends it to offer a profound meditation on a greater hope, the metaphysical perspectives of which surpass the physical trajectories of devastation, deportation and death ... The Afterword to this new translation creates...an original and in-depth analysis of interviews given by Aichinger throughout her life. The Coda to this edition consists of a commentary upon and quotations from a previously unpublished letter from Ilse Aichinger in Vienna to her twin sister, Helga, in London for Christmas 1945"--Back cover.