"Shortlisted in the 2025 Encounter prize"
"An epic love letter to lost Odesa"
"The White Rabbits" by Sonia Kapynus
An epic historical love story set in Odesa and Athens, “White Rabbits” captures the dislocation of exile and the triumph of life over war. Structured as memoir-in-letters, the novel opens in Athens, 1922: a pregnant young woman named Sonechka writes to a friend in Constantinople while preparing to marry.
Her letters trace a luminous Odessa childhood within the Jewish intelligentsia, the chaos of Bolshevik occupation, and a dramatic night-time escape by ship during the January 1920 evacuation. At the core lies her enduring love for her first husband—a celebrated Odesa doctor now missing in action. From their first meeting to their last night together, this is a chronicle of fragile yet unbreakable devotion.
Why It Sells
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Sweeping scope: Comparable to “The Nightingale”
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Jewish diaspora perspective broadens historical-fiction shelf
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Epistolary form invites audiobook and podcast adaptation
Similar Titles:
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The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (historical love story)
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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (wartime separation)
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The World to Come by Dara Horn
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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
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Англійський пацієнт і Касабланка