Notes on Anna

In Neshnafad, in Iran, Katie is writing a story about a Dutch girl called Anna, whilst all around her the country is slowly heading towards turmoil. She hides her notes secretively although her husband Mike knows that her dream is to become a full-time writer and that she is working on a novel set in the Netherlands. After their daughter is born and life in his home country descends into full blown revolution, Mike finds Katie’s notebooks and speculates that she is writing a story about something that has happened to her, an event she has concealed from him throughout their time together. What is the truth and what is fiction? What will Mike do and how will Katie later explain to her daughter what happened and what she did? A thought provoking novel that illuminates the day to day lives of girls and women during the mid 20th century in a Calvinist dominated ‘bible belt’ of The Netherlands, and at the same time deals with subsequent issues of migration and displacement, and the despondency of being homeless and out of kilter with the world around.