Ashes in the Snow

The first novel of Ruta Sepetis („Salt to Salt”, „Fountains of Silence”) tells the story of a young girl of Lithuanian descent who is sent with her family to be imprisoned in Siberia.

The horrors of war mixed with the tenderness of fine art and the first thrills of love knit the plot of „Ashes in the Snow,” a kind of prequel to the award-winning „Salt by the Salt.”.

Winter 1941, Lithuania.

Lina is an ordinary fifteen-year-old girl - she draws, fights with her brother, falls hard in love. Until one fateful night, officers of the monstrous Soviet military police, the NKVD, invade her home and smash her family and the life she knows to pieces.

Her father, the respected rector of the university in the capital Vilnius, disappears without a trace, and Lina, her mother and younger brother are crammed into a cattle car along with other victims, including lawyers, teachers and doctors. On Stalin's orders, the seemingly endless train heads north, towards Siberia. The journey is slow and harrowing, and many die - killed by starvation, exhaustion or liquidated by the ruthless Russians.

Lina finds solace only in drawing. At the risk of her life and armed with pieces of charcoal, she documents the ghastly events around her. She clings to the hope that they may be leading her to the camp where her father is imprisoned. The young girl believes she can survive where to live is a crime.