And Love Itself

During the Second World War, in occupied Maribor, the lives of three people become entangled. Sonja and Valentin are young lovers, intellectuals from middle-class families who dream of a shared future. The occupier's mounting violence forces Valentin to join the Partisans in the Pohorje hills, where in a moment of weakness he falls into the hands of the police and ends up in Maribor's prisons. To save him from torture, Sonja turns for help to a childhood acquaintance, Ludwig Mischkolnig, once the modest Ludek and now a fanatical SS man, who is captivated by her beauty. Through their stories the novel shows the hell of war in the Styrian capital, in the Pohorje forests, in a Nazi camp and during the Communist takeover after the war.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

351 pages in the original

Genres

War, Love, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Slovenia, Germany, 1940s

First published

2017 by Beletrina

Author's age

69 when first published

ISBN

9789612842758 (original)

9781628973488 (Dalkey Archive Press, United States)