Being Lena Levi

It’s 1950: a mysterious stranger shows up at Marlene Roberts’ Canterbury home, turning her teenage world upside down. The exotic ‘Mutti’, a German Jew and Holocaust survivor, is the mother she never knew she had.

Years earlier, Mutti had sent the infant Marlene to England for safety but now she wants her daughter – her ‘Lena Levi’ – back. As Marlene finds her whole identity thrown into doubt, can she still trust her English ‘mum’? And can she rely on the charismatic Mutti, a volatile woman deeply scarred by the horrors of Auschwitz?

Compelled to find out who she really is, Marlene boldly determines to go to the newly founded state of Israel to resurrect a younger self she thought she had forgotten.

For Marlene Roberts, being Lena Levi is going to be the adventure of a lifetime