A DNA test in Danny Unrau's first novel entitled You are the Boy (Friesens 2012 $19.86) sends the protagonist Ben Ruhe on a search for his roots. He discovers that a Jewish infant was mysteriously left on a Mennonite doorstep in the violent Ukraine nearly eighty years before he was born. It turns out his maternal grandmother was Jewish, adopted secretly into a Mennonite family in the 1870s. He explores Mennonite and Jewish history, from southern Manitoba to British Columbia, from the Ukraine to Siberia, from Jerusalem to Dachau.

As the author of previous collections Saints, Sinners & Angels and Rogues, Rascals & Rare Gems, Unrau has a BA in sociology, English and religious studies, and an MA and Ph.D in Jewish studies.

BOY 978-1770975330

[BCBW 2013]