Rachel Meller grew up near London, the middle daughter of Austrian Jewish refugees. After studying neurobiology at Sussex, and research into hormones and behaviour at Cambridge, she became a writer in a communication consultancy. The Box with the Sunflower Clasp is her first book.
The Box with the Sunflower Clasp is a transfixingly readable amalgam of memoir and history, which poignantly evokes the pain and loss attendant on a Viennese Jewish woman's exile in Shanghai during the war. Superbly written and researched, Rachel Meller's is by no means a conventional account. Into her extraordinary family saga Meller has assimilated elements of detection, travel, biography, moral essay and personal revelation. She has turned the raw material of her life into literature -- Ian Thomson, author of PRIMO LEVI Rachel Meller sensitively tells the story of her aunt Lisbeth and her parents who arrived in Shanghai from Vienna in March 1940... Fascinating -- Harry Freedman, author of BRITAIN'S JEWS This meticulously researched family memoir is as full of drama, emotion and feeling as any novel. It explores a little-known corner of history but also the endlessly fascinating subject of close family relationships and how mysterious those we love can sometimes be. I found it completely engrossing -- Adèle Geras, author of FACING THE LIGHT This memoir is as absorbing as any William Boyd novel - the fact that it's all carefully documented and true makes it even more fascinating. I predict it will become a distinguished account of a scarcely credible world of gangsters, Jewish millionaires, British class snobbery and the fate of one small family in a world where one false move can lead to death. Totally absorbing. A must-read. -- The Cambridge Critique * The Cambridge Critique *