The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story

RESCHEDULED to Fall

In her latest book, The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, bestselling author Diane Ackerman recounts a true tale–as powerful as Schindler’s List–in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw–and the city’s zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen “guests” hid inside the Zabinskis’ villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants–otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes.

With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her. Courtesy of Borders, copies of The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story will be available for purchase and signing at this event.

Advance Reviews

Dava Sobel, author of The Planets and Galileo’s Daughter
Stunning….Rarely does one read a book in which the author and the heroine are so magically matched.

Jared Diamond, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel
Diane Ackerman has surpassed even herself in her latest book, which is alternatingly funny, moving, and terrifying.

Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated
I can’t imagine a better story or storyteller. The Zookeeper’s Wife will touch every nerve you have.