Seal Woman

Having answered a Berlin newspaper advertisement for “strong women who can cook and do farm work,” Sophie Charlotte finds herself married with two sons on an Icelandic sheep farm, trying to sever cords of memory that lead back to the powerful love she knew in Germany and all that she lost there. When World War II began, Charlotte was attached to a supremely talented but politically furious painter in Berlin. But she would lose him twice: first to the resistance and then to the camps. More wounding for Charlotte, however, is the unforgiving trace of their daughter, Lena, who at five years old tragically disappeared into the chaos of the War.

This is an extraordinarily beautiful saga that links sure-footed portraits of wartime Berlin and the severity of life in the Icelandic countryside. Moving and genuinely affirming, Seal Woman is a many-colored portrayal of a strong woman’s life broken in two stark and unforgiving worlds separated by the North Atlantic.