The Bureau of Unknown Fates: A heartbreaking novel about WWII's forgotten objects and the lives they hold by Gaelle Nohant ISBN:9781786583802

Bureau of Unknown Fates by Gaelle Nohant

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Sometimes when you are looking for the dead, you find the living.

When Irene joins the International Tracing Service, she becomes consumed by a singular obsession: returning the belongings confiscated from concentration camp prisoners to their families.

A faded cloth doll. A medallion. An embroidered handkerchief. Each object holds a story – and behind each one, a life waiting to be pieced back together.

As Irene traces the owners through fragments of evidence, she reconstructs their final days and discovers that even in the darkest chapter of history, humanity endured.

The Bureau of Unknown Fates is a devastating and beautiful novel about history, memory and survival as one woman helps connect families across generations to the ones they have lost.

Winner of the 2023 Grand Prix RTL-Lire Fiction Award

This gripping novel is set at the heart of The International Tracing Service – an organisation that was created at the end of the Second World War to investigate Nazi crimes, search for missing people, and discover what became of them.


About the Author: Gaelle Nohant is the author of L’Ancre des reves, published in 2007 and winner of the Encre Marine prize, organised by France’s Navy. Her second novel, La Part des flammes, was awarded the 2016 Prix du Livre de Poche and the Prix du Livre France Bleu – Page des Librairies. The Legende d’un dormeur eveille also won the 2017 Prix des Librairies. Her latest novel is The Bureau of Fates which is currently being translated into ten languages and adapted to the screen.

16 Jul 2026
 

Additional information

Format

Paperback / softback

Genre

Historical fiction

Readership Level

General (US: Trade)

ISBN

9781786583802

Author

Maren Baudet-Lackner

Publication Date

16 Jul 2026

The Bureau of Unknown Fates: A heartbreaking novel about WWII’s forgotten objects and the lives they hold by Gaelle Nohant ISBN 9781786583802

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