Just announced: The Launch For "In The Garden of Memory: A Family Memoir"
Please Join on Sunday, October 19.
In the Garden of Memory: A Family Memoir — Antonia Lloyd-Jones (translator) in conversation with Peter L.W. Osnos — at Conn Ave
Winner of the Nike Prize, Poland’s most prestigious literary award, In the Garden of Memory is a memoir on the family of Peter Osnos.
Joanna Olczak-Ronikier is one of Poland’s most admired dramatists, screenwriters, and authors. In the Garden of Memory, her most acclaimed work, traces the lives of four generations of her own family-Polish Jews who were members of one of the country’s most illustrious clans, noted for its achievements in business, politics, and culture-as they lived, struggled, and (mostly) survived through the turbulent twentieth century.
Rich with tales of bravery as well as poignant, sometimes comic anecdotes of everyday life, the book follows the family members as they scattered around the world to European spas, tsarist prisons, Soviet war camps, and the Royal Air Force. Tracing their roots to a renowned Austrian rabbi, the family members included an array of amazing characters. One became an industrial magnate who founded the Citro n automobile company in France; another was a Communist revolutionary who ended up being arrested, tortured, and executed by Stalin’s police. One worked as an undercover agent, another as a zoologist in France. One became a notable Polish publisher, another a leading Freudian psychiatrist.
Inevitably, the tragic history of the Second World War and its catastrophic impact on European Jews looms darkly over the narrative, yet remarkably enough only two members of the clan were killed in the Holocaust. Today the survivors have continued the family journey around the world, including in the United States. Beautifully translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, In the Garden of Memory is ultimately the uplifting account of a family that never gave up hope and never gave in.
Antonia Lloyd-Jones has translated works by many of Poland’s leading contemporary novelists and reportage authors, as well as classics, biographies, essays, crime fiction, poetry and children’s books. Her translation of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by 2018 Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International prize. For ten years she was a mentor for the Emerging Translators’ Mentorship Programme, and is a former co-chair of the UK Translators Association.
Lloyd-Jones will be in conversation with Peter L.W. Osnos, the author of An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen, the coauthor of Would You Believe . . . The Helsinki Accords Changed the World? and the editor of George Soros: A Life in Full. His most recent book is LBJ and McNamara: The Vietnam Partnership Destined to Fail. He is the founder of the publishing house PublicAffairs and a former publisher of the Times Books imprint at Random House, where he was previously a senior editor and associate publisher. Prior to his career in book publishing, he spent eighteen years at The Washington Post, where he was a correspondent in Saigon, Moscow, and London and served as foreign editor and national editor. He is a graduate of Brandeis University and the Columbia School of Journalism, and his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. He lives in Bethesda, MD.
This event is free with first come, first serve seating.
To request accommodations for this event or to inquire about accessibility please email events@politics-prose.com ideally one week in advance of the event date. We will make an effort to accommodate all requests up until the time of the event.
Date:Sun, 10/19/2025
Time:3:00pm
Place:
Politics and Prose at 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW
5015 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20008
Event Related Books & Products
Preorder
In the Garden of Memory
Current price:$27.95
Winner of the Nike Prize, Poland’s most prestigious literary award
Joanna Olczak-Ronikier is one of Poland’s most admired dramatists, screenwriters, and authors. In the Garden of Memory, her most acclaimed work, traces the lives of four generations of her own family-Polish Jews who were members of...
Read Moreabout In the Garden of Memory
Available for Preorder
Publish Date: 10/14/2025
© 2025 Politics and Prose Bookstore
We so VERY MUCH hope, Peter, that this amazing launch event will be streamed or even archived for the multitude of your admirers who will be geographically challenged (Paris) on that date !
In any event, a big round of applause !!!