Foreign Rights

Larissa Boehning

Light Fabrics

When Nele Niebuhr discovers the existence of a Degas painting said to have been in the possession of her now-dead grandmother at the end of the Second World War, she is not simply interested in the whereabouts of a family heirloom likely to be worth millions. For the painting is at the centre of a family secret that has been carefully hushed up ever since. A black American soldier is supposed to have given the picture to her grandmother before disappearing for ever back to America and leaving her alone with their child in the ruins of Berlin. Following her grandmother’s death Nele sets out to find her lost grandfather in America — and also to find the missing painting, and the key to understanding her own origins.