Se esiste un perdono

The forgotten story of the British Schindler. A highly successful author throughout Europe. Winner of the Prix Polar 2022

They call her the Salt Child, because every evening, when darkness floods the city, you can meet her at the mouth of an alleyway selling blue cloth bags with a handful of salt inside, long unobtainable, to passersby. No one in Prague knows her name. No one knows how she obtains that precious commodity. The Child appears after sunset and disappears before dawn, giving no confidence to those she meets. A coin, a bag. That’s all. It is 1938. The Nazi furor looms over Czechoslovakia and Hitler is on the doorstep. Fear is rampant, especially among the Jews of the Ghetto. There is no time, one must flee. The weakest must be saved, such as children without families, like the Salt Child. An impossible task. Yet there is one man who believes in it, an Englishman of Jewish descent, Nicholas Winton, who attempts the miracle: setting up trains bound for the United Kingdom to rescue as many children as possible. Amidst a thousand logistical and political obstacles, and with the help of young Petra who guides him to a city unknown to him and filled with fascination, Winton is about to succeed in his heroic endeavor. But the Salt Child seems unwilling to be rescued. Why the shifty look? What secret is she hiding? In this novel, which tells the true and forgotten story of Sir Nicholas Winton, brought back to light thanks to a moving BBC video where the 80-year-old man surprisingly meets “his” now-adult children, Fabiano Massimi takes us on a journey between history and fiction, illuminating one of the darkest pages of our past with the light of hope.