Jakob's Colours
Lindsay Hawdon2015

Jakob, a gypsy boy - half Roma, half Yenish - runs, as he has been told to do. With shoes of sackcloth, still stained with another's blood, a stone clutched in one hand, a small wooden box in the other.
He runs blindly, full of fear, empty of hope.

'Don't be afraid, Jakob,' his father has told him.
'See the colours, my boy,' he has whispered.
So he does. Rusted ochre from a mossy bough.
Steely white from the sap of the youngest tree.
On and on, Jajob runs.

Spanning from one world war to another, taking us across England, Switzerland and Austria, this powerful and heart-wrenching first novel is drawn from a little-known piece of history: the Porajmos, or Gypsy Holocaust. Yet through it all is woven the brightness of hope, the strength of the human spirit, the colours that make life worth living.

Titre original : Jakob's Colours (2015)