The Most Precious Of Cargoes

Set during the height of World War II a powerful and unsettling tale about a woodcutter and his wife who finds a mysterious parcel thrown from a passing train. Once upon a time in an enormous forest lived a woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter is very poor and a war rages around them making it difficult for them to put food on the table. Yet every night his wife prays for a child. A Jewish father rides on a train holding twin babies. His wife no longer has enough milk to feed both children. In hopes of saving them both he wraps his daughter in a shawl and throws her into the forest. While foraging for food the wife finds a bundle a baby girl wrapped in a shawl. Although she knows harboring this baby could lead to her death she takes the child home. Set against the horrors of the Holocaust and told with a fairytalelike lyricism The Most Precious of Cargoes is a fable about family and redemption which reminds us that humanity can be found in the most inhumane of places. Translated from the French by Frank Wynne