book review of march by geraldine brooks

Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love. Hanna’s investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah’s extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siècle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city’s rising anti-Semitism. In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s journey from its salvation back to its creation. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding-an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair-she begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war

Book review of march by geraldine brooks