Nowhere In Africa » (Reprint)

Stefanie Zweig was born in Germany in Upper Silesia in 1932. In 1938 she and her parents fled to Kenya, but returned to Germany in 1947. A journalist and author, she has written many award-winning books for children and adults. Her autobiographical novels Nirgendwo in Afrika and Irgendwo in Deutschland have been translated into many languages.

Nowhere in Africa is the extraordinary tale of a Jewish family that flees the Nazi regime in 1938 for a remote farm in Kenya. Abandoning their once-comfortable existence in Germany, Walter Redlich, his wife Jettel, and their five-year-old daughter, Regina, each deal with the harsh realities of their new life in different ways. Attorney Walter is resigned to working the farm as a caretaker; pampered Jettel resists adjustment at every turn; only the shy yet curious Regina immediately embraces the country—learning the local language and customs, and finding a friend in Owuor, the farm's cook. As the war rages on the other side of the world, the family's relationships with their strange environment become increasingly complicated as Jettel grows more self-assured and Walter more haunted by the life they left behind. In 1946, with the war over, Regina's fondest dream comes true when her brother Max is born. Walter's decision, however, to return to his homeland to help rebuild a new Germany puts his family into turmoil again.