‘His beautiful adjectives and descriptions add a flourish of colour to a story so dark and bleak’
Anna and the Swallow Man is set in Poland during the second world war, following a girl named Anna (surprise, surprise!) who, after her father is mysteriously stolen away in the middle of the day, is left to fend for herself on the streets of Krakow. She soon becomes acquainted with a strange and nameless man, who she comes to know as the Swallow Man. Though he seems dangerous, Anna has nobody else to depend on... what else has she got to lose? So she sets off with the Swallow Man on a never ending adventure away from the crippling dangers of Krakow, toward a life filled with much more sinister threats.
Firstly, this book was like none other I had ever read about the effects which the war and the Holocaust had on the people of Poland. Gavriel Savit approached the topic in a refreshingly new and thought-provoking manner. He suggested, however never explicitly stated, that Anna and the Swallow Man were Jewish, running away from the persecution of the Nazis. Through not knowing why, Anna and the Swallow Man were running, always running; Savit crafted an atmosphere of animosity and poignancy, reminding readers that the Nazis could be after you for anything.
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