Roots in a Handbag

Do our roots define our destiny? How do our journeys change us? For Maria and Olga Kozlova, answers to these questions were not just reflections; they were survival. Uprooted by revolutions and wars, they carried with them not only keepsakes, but traditions, values and the strength to start over again. Maria, once a high-society lady, kept her Russia alive in a dried rose from her mother's garden and a dance card marked with her late husband's name. Olga, her granddaughter, grew up in Harbin, China, the Paris of the Far East, longing for her absent parents. In Harbin, a city born of the Chinese Eastern Railway, émigrés built a beautiful old Russian universe, infused with the exotic rhythms of Manchuria. When that bubble burst, Olga too faced difficult choices. Roots in a Handbag is a literary chronicle of Maria, Olga and their kin's lives, loves and legacy. But it also speaks to every migrant journey. It reminds us that emigration is never only about leaving. It is also about how we carry forward what matters most: memory, resilience, and the choice to remain human in the face of a constantly changing and often adverse world.

Autorentext
Elena Egorenkova Raklev was born in Russia in 1963 and left the country at the age of six. She grew up in Uruguay in the home of her maternal grandparents, Russian émigrés from Harbin, China. She received a broad humanities education, later supplemented with business studies, and is proficient in several European languages. From childhood, Elena wrote poetry and later prose, both in Russian and Spanish. With the support of her family, she self-published two poetry collections in Russian: "Traveller" and "Return". Her other big interest is history, and she undertook extensive research over the years to learn more about her family. Elena had a long and rewarding international career with the United Nations, culminating in her role as a human resources specialist at the World Health Organization. She now lives in Denmark with her family and is fully dedicated to writing. This is her debut work of prose.