In 1942, in German-occupied Poland, a baby girl was smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto in a backpack. That baby, Joasia, knew nothing about this extraordinary event until she was thirty-two, when a letter arrived from a stranger. She also learned that the parents who raised her were actually her aunt and uncle. Joasia kept this knowledge hidden from her own daughter, Karen - until an innocent question revealed the truth.

Determined to help heal her mother’s pain, Karen set out to piece together a hidden history. From the glittering days of pre-war Poland to the little-known Radom Prison, where a Jewish woman negotiates with an SS officer to save her sister’s child, to the author’s upbringing in a Christian home, Irena’s Gift is a story about reclaiming Jewish identity in the face of betrayal and generational trauma, and the secrets we keep to protect ourselves and those we love.

Irena’s Gift was a finalist for the Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Non-Fiction, Shalom Collective Jewish Writer Award (2024).

The book will also be available for purchase on the day by our official bookseller, Gertrude and Alice Bookstore.

Speaker Bio

Karen Kirsten is the author of Irena's Gift, a US National Jewish Book Award finalist, winner of Zibby Awards for Best Family Drama & Best Story of Overcoming (US) and Australian Jewish Book Award finalist.

Karen is an Australian writer and Holocaust educator. Her essay, Searching for the Nazi Who Saved My Mother’s Life was nominated for The Best American Essays. Karen’s writing has also appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald,Good Weekend, Salon, Huffington Post, The Week, The Jerusalem Post, WIĘŹ in Poland, Boston's National Public Radio station, and more.

Interviewer Bio

Michaela Kalowski is an interviewer, moderator and curator for writers and ideas festivals. Highlight interviews include Margaret Atwood, Amos Oz, Tim Minchin and Etgar Keret. She's curator of ABC RN’s on-air writers’ festival, Big Weekend of Books. Michaela has conducted radio interviews and presented programs across ABC radio and TV and is the copresenter and co-writer of a two-part family history podcast for ABC RN called Laya’s Way Home.

Contact the host of Irena's Gift in Double Bay