Ghostwritten by Isabel Wolff

Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Release Date: March 27th 2014
Pages: 400
Source: Author

Jenni loves her job as a ghostwriter – it satisfies her insatiable curiosity about people. And she can hide behind the stories of others, and not think about her own life too much…

But then Jenni gets the chance to work on the memoirs of Klara, who  is an elderly Dutch lady, living in the countryside of Cornwall, where she is living for almost sixty years. But Klara didn't grew up in Cornwall: She grew up at a rubber plantation in Java. Her parent's where middle class Dutch, living a good life at the plantation in a nice house, and with domestic helpers. But everything changes in a tragic way with the Japanese invasion Klara's father is taken away by  and Klara, her brother and mother are put in a Japanese internment camp, every morning they have to stand for hours in the burning sun, and there is less and less food and the most terrible tortures are happening on a daily basis. Eventually they land in the Tjideng camp, known for its hardships. The question is the family will see the father and Peter again, and hopefully alive when the war eventually ends.
Jenni herself has also a secret from her past which she finds hard to talk about, but with talking with Klara. In her childhood, a terrible an tragic event happened, and maybe by working on Klara’s memoir, she finally finds a way to make peace with this.

I was very moved by this beautiful book. I am Dutch, and I loved that the author put so much Dutch words and names in it, I immediately felt connected to the story. I must honestly say I didn't knew much about about Japanese internment camps in Indonesia during World War II, although in Dutch schools much is thought about the German occupation in Europe. However, author Isabel Wolff did a magnificent research about what happened in internment camps. I could visualize everything that happened with Klara and her family in my mind. It was truly shocking to read what happened in those camps at some points, and Klara sees many of her friends never again.

The story switches from Jenni's point of view to Klara's story, which she is telling to Jenni. I really liked this, as the reader also get's to know more about Jenni and what happened to her in the past. This book tells the stories of two woman, living in the past and present but connected to each other by their personal stories. It is beautifully written, and I was gripped by it from the start.