"In his major new novel, Catalin Dorian Florescu tells the adventurous life story of Jacob Obertinfrom from the Swabian village Triebswetter in the Romanian Banat. It is a story of love and friendship, escape and betrayal, and how one's ability to love can rescue him away from everything. Jacob's story - located in time between the end of the 20s and early 50s - is expands into a family epic, which is fast-paced and dense, full of fantastic images, the fate of the Obertin told over more than 300 years, starting with the 30 Years War in Lorraine. At the end of the 18th Century, Jacob's ancestors, like thousands of others from Lorraine seeking a better life on the dangerous journey to the Banat, made to find happiness and to own their own land. Jacob is confronted with the struggle for power and possession, is betrayed by his own father and loses his first love. But again there are people who help him, the vicissitudes of history - to survive its grotesque and catastrophic consequences and for a new departure - dictatorships and deportations."--Cataloger translation of publisher description.