Thrust into a hostile world, and unable to comprehend the language,
Heike, an immigrant and 'enemy' child, struggles to understand the
English islanders as she adjusts to the new identity demanded of her.
Intent on escaping the traumas of growing up in fascist Germany and the
horrors of its post-war desolation, Heike's mother will marry the
charismatic English officer she met during the Allied occupation of
Lüneburg. Her daughter, who will be known as 'Susanna' from now on, must
be kept innocent of her mother's past and grow up to be English.
As this memoir of displacement, national character, and
misunderstandings unfolds, S M Saunders becomes the detective in her own
story, searching for the truth that will reconcile her double identity
and conflicting emotions.
But this is far from a misery memoir. This is a tale of love--the
narrator's intense love for the extraordinary and eccentric English
people whose positive influences not only shaped her and her mother, but
also lent her the strength to come to terms with both her own identity
and with her mother's complex, harrowing story.
Susanna: the Making of an English Girl explores a childhood that is
sad, beautiful, funny, rich in detail and marked, above all, by love.
