For three years and eight months, Felix has lived in a convent orphanage high in the mountains in Poland. But Felix is different from the other orphans. He is convinced his parents are still alive and will come back to get him. When a group of Nazi soldiers come and burn the nuns' books, Felix is terrified that his Jewish, bookseller parents will also be in danger. After escaping from the orphanage, Felix embarks on a long and dangerous journey through Nazi occupied Poland, befriending a little orphan girl called Zelda and a kindly dentist, Barney, who hides and cares for Jewish children. But when the Nazis discover them, Barney makes the ultimate sacrifice for the children.

Remarkable prose collection from a notable Australian poet. If life is a cosmic stage where illusions are the only reality, says Jacob G. Rosenberg, it is through these illusions that we can sometimes better recognize our world, our fellows, and ourselves. Such is the author's hope in this book. The stories in the first part, Lives, explore dimensions of the human landscape. The shorter pieces that make up Embers, inspired by the midrashic tradition of biblical interpretation, investigate the eternal human drama through the prisms of scripture, history, and folklore.

"It is the mid-1980s. In Australia, stay-at-home wives jostle with want-it-all feminists, while AIDS threatens the sexual freedom of everyone. On the other side of the world the Soviet Block is in turmoil. Gorbachev has been in power for a year when twenty-four-year-old book illustrator, Galina Kogan, leaves Leningrad - forbidden ever to return. As a Jew she's inherited several generations worth of Russia's chronic anti-Semitism. As a Soviet citizen she is unprepared for Australia and its easy-going ways. Once settled in Melbourne, Galina is befriended by Sylvie and Leonard Morrow, and their adult son, Andrew. The Morrow marriage of thirty years balances on secrets. Leonard is a man with conflicted desires and passions, while Sylvie chafes against the confines of domestic life. Their son, Andrew, a successful mosaicist, is a deeply shy man. He is content with his life and work - until he finds himself increasingly drawn to Galina. While Galina grapples with the tumultuous demands that come with being an immigrant in Australia, her presence disrupts the lives of each of the Morrows. No one is left unchanged."--Publisher's description