"His breathing was so slight she could scarcely detect it, even when she lowered her face to his. The smell of him, like new bread, or was it her smell? She could not tell. He and I smell identical, she thought, smiling in the darkness. The barn was softly warm, and the warmth and softness wrapped around mother and child as they curled together in the gloom, breathed together, smelled the same.'Yenko,' Anna whispered in her son's ear.'Your real name is Yenko."

It is 1927. In the heart of Central Europe, a son is born to Josef, leader of a nomadic group of Coppersmith Gypsies, and his wife, Anna. For the benefit of most people he is named Emil, but his real name, known only to his mother, is Yenko.

Born in a time of peace and prosperity, Yenko grows up during the Great Depression of the 1930s and is then caught up in the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and in World War II. Soon he and his family are fugitives. . . .Their flight will end in tragedy for some and miraculous escape for others. . . .

From the inter war years through the drama of the Prague uprising of 1945, Fires in the Dark is a breathtaking novel of epic scope. Louise Doughty has created an authentic and compassionate portrayal of Romany life — and a celebration of a greatly misunderstood culture, told through the story of one family living in an extraordinary time in history.

This is a sweeping, epic novel set in Prague and the Moravian countryside during World War II about the fate of the gypsies during Hitler's reign.

About Author

Louise Doughty is the author of three novels — Crazy Paving, Dance with Me and Honey-Dew -- and three plays for radio. She has also worked extensively as a journalist and broadcaster. Fires in the Dark, winner of a Writers Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain, where it was published to widespread critical acclaim, is the first in a series of novels based on the history of the Romany people and on the author's own family ancestry.

Fires In the Dark reveals the highly secretive and misunderstood world of the coppersmith gypsies. In 1927, when prosperity still reigns in Central Europe, Yenko is born to two Coppersmith Gypsies. His parents, Josef and Anna, are nomads who raise their son during the relative calm of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Soon, though, dangerous times threaten to unsettle their family, as their heritage makes them vulnerable targets for ethnic cleansing. As Germany invades Czechoslovakia and the conflicts of World War II begin to unfold, Yenko and his parents become fugitives, forced on a journey that promises only great uncertainty and offers survival as a remote possibility. In the course of their flight, the burden of an ancient tradition rests entirely on Yenko's shoulders. In capturing the desperation and perseverance of one family during an extraordinary time in history, Louise Doughty pays powerful homage to an insular and little-known culture.