Tales of innocence and experience - Eva Figes

Tales of Innocence and Experience is a captivating exploration of the relationship between a grandmother and her granddaughter as a second baby is about to be born. Alive to the special sweetness of the relationship, Figes also explores the darker side of childhood. How in fairy tales such as 'Snow White', 'Little Red Riding Hood' and 'Hansel and Gretel' difficult emotions like jealousy and anger, fear of death and abandonment are evoked and transformed by the story-teller's art. It is at this point that the author evokes the fairy tale of her own privileged Berlin childhood which was brutally shattered when her family escaped from the Nazis to England, leaving behind the much loved grandparents, who perished in a death camp in Poland. As Eva Figes says, 'Women lose their innocence, not with loss of virginity, but with childbirth', but a new child around allows the grandmother the chance we all seek to sneak back into the garden of innocence.