Musings on In Darkness and Light by Tudor Alexander

Keywords: Second World War, Jewish Family in Romania, Antisemitism in Romania, Jewish deportation in Transnistria

Genre: Historical Fiction

Length: short medium long

Country: Romania

Told across braided timelines, In Darkness and Light traces Tina’s life from a fiercely hopeful Jewish girl in Romania to a woman shaped by the horror of war and loss and the pursuit of a better future.

As antisemitism tightens its grip on the cusp of World War II, young Tina is drawn to the promise of communism, joining an underground movement that seems to offer justice in an increasingly hostile world. When Tina and her family are deported to a desolate village in Transnistria, she endures unimaginable hardship, emerging changed, her convictions strengthened.

In the years that follow in a newly communist Romania, Tina enrolls in medical school. She meets Iulian, a brilliant writer and devoted party member whose blindness shapes how he sees the world and how he understands it. Their love is deep and real, grounded in a shared belief of an equitable society they are trying to build for their country and their young daughter.

But history intervenes. The corrupt and often violent methods of the regime begin to surface, and Tina is forced to confront a growing unease—about her country, her ideals, and herself. After a shocking loss, the only choice remaining is to seek a path forward.

At once a sweeping love story and a profound tragedy, In Darkness and Light explores the powerful allure of ideology and the difficult reckoning when ideals clash with the realities of life.

Review

When I saw In Darkness and Light on BookSirens, I was immediately intrigued. First of all, the cover caught my eye, I loved the aesthetics of it. Then I clicked to read the synopsis, and you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that the author is originally from the same country as I am, and that the novel was inspired by the experiences of one of his relatives in Romania on the brink of the Second World War. The idea of reading a book that explored that historical context through a Romanian family’ story felt deeply personal.

Needless to say, I requested it, and I am grateful to both BookSirens and the author for the opportunity to read it.

A bit of context

Before I talk about the book itself, I feel I need to explain my own relationship with the subject of the Holocaust, antisemitism, and the Second World War, because this was not a book I could read quickly.

When I was in the eighth grade, almost 20 years ago (OMG) I participated in a competition called The Memories of the Holocaust. Looking back, I am no longer convinced that it was entirely appropriate for fourteen-year-olds. I spent an entire school year immersed in the history of persecution, deportation, and extermination. I memorized laws, decrees, and the gradual steps through which Jewish communities across Europe were isolated and ostracized. The experience became emotionally overwhelming. I had nightmares, and I cried often (very).

The most powerful moment came when the students who reached the national stage, me among them, were invited to meet a survivor of Auschwitz. She was from Oradea, a city in Western Romania, and she told us how her family had been deported, how she and her sister were separated from their parents and grandparents at the camp gates, and how she was the only one who survived. She eventually returned to Oradea and lived long enough for us to hear her testimony. Hearing that story directly from someone who had lived through it affected me profoundly. After that competition, I stopped reading almost anything related to the Holocaust or that period of time for many years.

Only recently have I begun approaching the subject again. That is why this book mattered so much to me from the very beginning. Seeing a Romanian author write about this Jewish family’s experience in Romania made me want to know more.

On the book

In Darkness and Light follows Tina, a Jewish girl growing up in Romania as antisemitism intensifies around her. Drawn to the promise of equality offered by communism, she eventually joins the underground movement that claims it will judge people neither by religion nor by ethnicity. Tina and her family are later deported to Transnistria, where they endure terrible hardship. The novel then follows the course of her life, the people she meets, the people she loves, and the ways in which history continues to shape her.

For me, this book became an opportunity to learn. Many of the historical events portrayed were either unfamiliar to me or things I had never fully understood. I was especially struck by the different fates of Jewish communities living within the same broader territory. A significant part of the novel takes place in Timișoara, the city where I live. This also contributed to a stronger connection to the story.

I was also deeply interested in the sections dealing with the deportations to Transnistria. Years ago, I had read official documents and historical studies about them, but fiction provided something those texts could not. It gave emotional texture to the historical facts. Through Tina and her family, I could better grasp the fear, uncertainty, and devastation that those deportations brought into ordinary people’s lives.

The novel explores many important themes: the seduction of political ideology, idealism confronted with historical reality, memory and trauma, deportation and survival, love and family under oppression, and the moral compromises demanded by authoritarian systems. Above all, it examines antisemitism in wartime Romania.

For the Romanian reader, I believe this book can start important conversations. Contemporary Romania is witnessing increasingly aggressive attempts to reinterpret history for political purposes, and Holocaust denial and the minimization of historical atrocities are no longer unthinkable positions. A novel like this offers readers a chance to learn, to question, and to continue researching.

For readers outside Romania, I think the book is equally valuable. Romania is often absent from international conversations about the Second World War, despite the significant role it played in many historical developments. Through this novel, foreign readers can gain insight into a part of European history that is too often overlooked.

There was, however, one aspect that did not fully work for me, and it is entirely a matter of personal taste. Anyone who has read my reviews knows that I love long, flowing sentences and richly descriptive prose. This novel is written in a much more restrained style. The focus is on events, choices, and historical movement rather than on elaborate description. I found myself wishing for more sensory detail and more time spent inhabiting the characters’ inner worlds. The characters are compelling, and their convictions, fears, and conflicts are evident through their actions. I simply wanted to spend a little more time with them on the page. This, however, is merely a reflection of my own literary preferences, and the restraint of the prose may in fact work well for many readers given the gravity of the subject matter.

What remains with me most strongly is the fact that this is a novel set in Romania, set partly in my own city, and willing to engage honestly with a painful chapter of our history. It examines not only the suffering itself, but also the politics, family relationships, geography, ideology, and social tensions that made that suffering possible.

In Darkness and Light by Tudor Alexander is a book I am glad I read. I am grateful to the author and to BookSirens for the opportunity, and I encourage readers to give it a chance. The book is not difficult to read in terms of language or structure, but it may become a slower reading experience if, like me, you keep Google open beside you, searching for historical references and wanting to learn more about the events it portrays.