The Walls Came Down by Ewa Dodd

SHORTLISTED FOR THE VIRGINIA PRIZE FOR FICTION

A young boy goes missing during a workers’ strike in 1980s Poland, unravelling a chain of events which will touch people across decades and continents.

Joanna, a young journalist in Warsaw, is still looking for her brother, who’s now been missing for over twenty years. Matt, a high-flying London city financier is struggling with relationship problems and unexplained panic attacks. And in Chicago, Tom, an old man, is slowly dying in a nursing home.

What connects them? As the mystery begins to unravel, the worlds of the three protagonists are turned upside down. But can they find each other before time runs out?

Reviews

“Wow what a book! A powerful and moving story of childhood loss and identity. This stunning debut by Ewa Dodd grips you straight away with its fully formed characters who you grow to really care for as the story progresses. The author also handles very effectively the narrative moving back and forth from Communist Poland to the present day… It is difficult to put down and moves along at just the right pace to keep the tension, whilst also satisfying the reader with sufficient detail. I highly recommend this for any reader who is looking for a moving story of family and belonging as well as a sense of recent Polish history. The best book I’ve read this year so far!”   - Manchester Military History Society

"A provocative tale that links the fall of Communism to a story about a search for family and identity, delivering impressive insights into the psyches of the characters." - Kirkus Reviews

"A captivating, moving and engaging story, I loved the writing style, the fluidity of the chapters. I recommend it." - Anthony Cherrier

"Fusing history with the contemporary, this missing child tale is immensely moving, heart wrenching even. It’s a gripping story of love and determination, with subtle political undertones that form the catalyst for the events that follow... It’s one thing to have an engrossing premise but quite another to execute it as competently as Ewa Dodd has done." - The Nudge

"The Walls Came Down is a book that I found almost impossible to put down once I started reading, the characters and the plot became so very real to me and I found that I desperately didn’t want to part with them, not even to refresh the cuppa that had been forgotten about and gone cold." - The Quiet Knitter

"Thoughtfully written and profoundly affecting, the story captured my imagination from the very beginning. With delicate sensitivity, the author brings a wealth of cultural understanding... Everything feels completely authentic... Moving seamlessly between three distinct locations, Poland, London and Chicago, the three main characters allow us a glimpse into each of their lives and reveal, ever so slowly, the secrets which they have carried within them for such a long time." - Jaffa Reads Too

"The Walls Came Down is the stunning debut novel from Ewa Dodd... Expertly written, the characters are well rounded... The poignancy of the story is extremely powerful, and left me with a warm feeling in my heart. Definitely a page turner." - White Shadow in a Basement

"The Walls Came Down  is a page-turner; an engaging and fast-paced story of a child disappearance that spans countries, systems and human frailties… Well written, The Walls Came Down is a gripping debut novel that brings another author to the excellent company of Polish-English writers such as Anya Lipska and Anna Taborska dark horror storytelling.”
Katarzyna Zechenter, a poet, the author of In the Shadow of the Tree and a lecturer at UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

“The Walls Came Down is a tense and moving tale of love and loss that grips the reader from start to finish. Shifting between contemporary London and Chicago and the Solidarity strikes of 1988, this compelling story shows us how a momentary act of selfishness can ruin several lives. It is also a reminder that the collapse of communism started not in Germany or in the Soviet Union but in the shipyards and mines of Poland, where the workers faced down a dictatorship that claimed to rule in their name, just as the people of Leipzig later would in 1989.”
Fiona Rintoul, journalist and author of the prize-winning The Leipzig Affair

About the Author 

Ewa Dodd has been writing since she was young - starting small with short self-illustrated books for children. More recently, she has delved into novel-writing, and is particularly interested in literature based in Poland, where her family are from. The Walls Came Down is her first published novel, for which she was shortlisted for the Virginia Prize for Fiction.