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Start giftingI Want You to Know We're Still Here
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NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARDS FINALIST • “Part personal quest, part testament, and all thoughtfully, compassionately written.”—The Washington Post
“Esther Safran Foer is a force of nature: a leader of the Jewish people, the matriarch of America’s leading literary family, an eloquent defender of the proposition that memory matters. And now, a riveting memoirist.”—Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR
Esther Safran Foer grew up in a home where the past was too terrible to speak of. The child of parents who were each the sole survivors of their respective families, for Esther the Holocaust loomed in the backdrop of daily life, felt but never discussed. The result was a childhood marked by painful silences and continued tragedy. Even as she built a successful career, married, and raised three children, Esther always felt herself searching.
So when Esther’s mother casually mentions an astonishing revelation—that her father had a previous wife and daughter, both killed in the Holocaust—Esther resolves to find out who they were, and how her father survived. Armed with only a black-and-white photo and a hand-drawn map, she travels to Ukraine, determined to find the shtetl where her father hid during the war. What she finds reshapes her identity and gives her the opportunity to finally mourn.
I Want You to Know We’re Still Here is the poignant and deeply moving story not only of Esther’s journey but of four generations living in the shadow of the Holocaust. They are four generations of survivors, storytellers, and memory keepers, determined not just to keep the past alive but to imbue the present with life and more life.
Esther Safran Foer was the CEO of Sixth & I, a center for arts, ideas, and religion. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Bert. They are the parents of Franklin, Jonathan, and Joshua, and the grandparents of six.
Esther Safran Foer was the CEO of Sixth & I, a center for arts, ideas, and religion. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Bert. They are the parents of Franklin, Jonathan, and Joshua, and the grandparents of six.
Reviews
“I Want You to Know We’re Still Here is a beautiful exploration of collective memory and Jewish history, of Esther Safran Foer’s personal quest to find any trace of a murdered sister, to track down the family who saved her father, and to ensure that the names from her family’s past live on.”—Nathan Englander, author of kaddish.com“Part personal quest, part testament and all thoughtfully, compassionately written.”—The Washington Post
“A riveting search for the truth in a family where the Holocaust shines bright in the background of daily life.”—Parade
“Foer has mastered, indeed pioneered, a difficult genre: synthesizing with skill and passion and humor and humility: memoir, memory, history, commentary.”—David Nasaw, author of The Patriarch
“A moving literary debut . . . a vivid testimony to the power of memory.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred revew)
“A skillfully written debut . . . Foer’s engrossing, well-researched family history will resonate with those curious about their own roots.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Esther Safran Foer is a natural storyteller—and what a story she has to tell! A tribute to human resilience, her family saga is full of heart and the breath of life. It is a perfect tonic for our cynical times. I loved it.”—Kati Marton, author of The Great Escape
“Stirring and inspiring, this remarkable book is a labor of love and hope. Esther Safran Foer goes on a brave journey abroad and into the past in search of unsettling family secrets buried in the horrible darkness created by Nazism. Her odyssey is both harrowing and heroic. When she returns, she can never see things in the same way, and neither can we. This book is a little triumph over fascism.”—Congressman Jamie Raskin
“Esther Safran Foer has written an honest, painful, and ultimately uplifting story of life after tragedy. This book is, above all else, the redemption song of her family and of her people. It should be read by everyone.”—Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic
“The story is at once beautiful and heartrending, and sheds light on what happened after the war—an often overlooked aspect of the Holocaust experience.”—Library Journal Expand reviews