“Scenes from the war live on as trauma in the memory of the next generation. A Little Annihilation by Anna Janko is an extraordinarily personal and powerful account of how the worst wartime atrocities affect ordinary people and are seldom recorded in the official histories.”—OLGA TOKARCZUK, winner of the Man Booker International Prize for Flights
“This shocking yet tender story rendered me speechless for several hours. Anna Janko drags her family's tragic past out from the recesses of memory, but she also provides us with a lifeline.” —WIOLETTA GREG
“This is a book about children in war and how we inherit trauma—factual and unflinching, but touching and tender…As with Svetlana Alexievich’s reportage, in this book war is shown not only as a tragic episode in history, but as a living memory, which even after many years puts us on our guard as a danger which could recur.” —Lithub
“A powerful meditation…though deeply personal, Janko’s narrative is also a compelling work of philosophic reflection, a signal contribution to contemporary efforts to think about our relationship to the past.” ―Katarzyna Bartoszyńska, Asymptote
“A Little Annihilation explores war and the relentless grind of history on a human scale—and as such, it is a haunting word of warning for the present and the future.” —European Literature Network
“War-time trauma can be carried over to the next generations and Anna Janko creates a powerful story of her inherited fear. This is a daring book about dealing with the painful family memories of World War II and the Holocaust, and about processing the hereditary trauma which has become part of Janko’s DNA.” —Anna Blasiak, Polish/English Translator and Coordinator at the European Literature Network
“Janko's book digs deep into the past and into memory to examine the poisonous influence of family trauma throughout the years. It's a harrowing journey, and a painful look at the fate of children in war. What makes the book so compelling despite that is the sheer amount of historical, creative and emotional work that we witness Janko doing in order to process what happened.” —Marta Dziurosz, Translator
“Janko’s mother’s story is her story. She will live with it. Such is the magic of this book. Janko stares into the abyss of history and lives with it…The message is timely. It always will be.” —Susan Babbitt, New York Journal of Books
“An exceptional book. Exceptional not just because we believe the author when she speaks of her ‘genetic trauma,’ but due to the powerful language which conveys her sadness, anger and goading irony, while verging on cynicism. Emotional truth emanates from this book.” —Gazeta Wyborcza
“This book argues strongly against the view that instances of war-related trauma can be ranked in a hierarchy.”—Wprost
“Janko has masterfully combined her mother’s memories, accounts from other members of the family who could tell their own versions of the story, and references to academic texts and essays with her own testimony about inheriting such memories and facing the burden and restrictions they impose.”—Onet.pl
