Bloodhound: Searching for My Father (Ramona Koval, Text)

Journalist Ramona Koval has carved a reputation as a consummate book critic and interviewer. Her passion for storytelling and sharp analysis is turned inwards in Bloodhound: Searching for My Father, in which she asks herself: what is my life story? Bloodhound takes a darker turn than her previous memoir, By the Book, by focusing on her damaged relationship with her father, a Jew who emigrated from Poland to Australia after World War II. Koval suspects he might not be her biological father and this book follows the journey as she tries to solve this mystery. In her younger years, Koval worked as a geneticist. Her accessibly written forays into the science of DNA and familial lineages, and what makes us who we are, is beautifully intertwined with her meditations on identity and belonging. Koval also seamlessly blends first-hand testimonies and documents from the war into her family history. Throughout the book Koval notes that her archival research has started to affect her emotional wellbeing. Readers too will be deeply shocked by the atrocities outlined in Bloodhound. Such shock, however, is an important reminder that history should never be forgotten, and that books like Bloodhound should continue being written for generations to come.

Emily Laidlaw is a freelance writer and editor