Would she have made it on her own? Who knows, even with Livia’s remarkable resilience which she still exhibits today in her nineties. It was Rose, with her desire to protect Livia and her instincts for survival that kept them, time and time again, from the many dangers which could have cost both of them their lives. From the moment they were on the transport to Auschwitz, and then saw their mother, along with Rose’s little son taken away and sent to the gas chambers, it was Rose who seem to anticipate what lay ahead. Maybe it was an extra morsel of food that could be obtained or an article of warm clothing. Rose always came through, even at great risk. Two Sisters is so much more than a story of survival during the Holocaust. It is the beautiful portrayal of a young girl―and later young woman―coming of age in rural Romania. Her academic achievements, schoolgirl crushes, and family life are all explored, revealed in detail for all of us. Carefully written and beautifully crafted, it serves as an extraordinary example of the power of the memoir in Holocaust understanding.

    

     The Intellectual Defense Service has operatives everywhere, insensitive, genetically enhanced and chemically manipulated cultural soldiers with superior physical and cognitive skills. II-22, a second generation operative, is sent on a mission to infiltrate the Resistance against Culture hideout, posing as a deserter and to eliminate the rebel leader. We follow II-22 and his uncultured rebel asset, Morgana, through the daily futuristic news of the Sector 10 Press Agency (the first case of book theft in fifty years, the discovery of a totum planet and of an alien drug, the emeargence of a new currency — the gigabyte, the cloning of the dinosaurs, the artificial creation of unicorns, the first robot with human emotions, the terrorist attacks lead by the monks of the of The Order of the Four Riding Saints, the discovery of a deadly virus in the frozen body of a yeti etc.), the nights in the Kowloon Walled City like outskirts, an apocalyptic rebel revolt, violence, culture, love and a reimagining of our world. What happens when II-22 is faced with human emotions and discovers the forbidden pleasures of a life outside the strict rules of the Service? In a way it is a somewhat inverted ‘Fahrenheit 451’ with influences of Orwell, Huxley and Philip K. Dick, the novel explores also the social, political and economical implications of the new enlightened world. ‘For me a society in which culture is mandatory and all inculture is punishable by law is an utopia and I found an immense joy in writing such a book. I hope you will find the same joy in reading it.’ — The Author