Walchen (Valkhen)

'Walchen' is the long-awaited new novel by Olga Gromova, author of one of the most important children's books of the 21st century, 'Sugar Child.' A cloudless Crimean summer. Ahead of thirteen-year-old Valya are holidays, seventh grade, and four years of excellent study, pursuing her dream of entering medical school. And then—her whole life. But on June 22, 1941, war broke out, and every day brought change. A few months would pass, and the girl would be sent along with hundreds of others to Germany, where she would be branded with the 'OST' symbol: 'Ostarbeiter'—not a person, but cheap labor. Hard work, injustice, deprivation—and then growing up, meeting amazing people who call her in German: Walchen.