Irina’s Children

Gallery Books executive editor Karen Kosztolnyik won North American rights after a three-day auction, to Tilar Mazzeo’s nonfiction proposal, Irena’s Children. The nonfiction book is about a woman who has been dubbed the “female Oskar Schindler.” The proposal unwinds the life story of Irena Sendler, who, along with the force of fellow Polish citizens, went to extremes during World War II to save over 2,000 children from the Warsaw Ghetto. (Sendler kept the names of all the rescued kids in a jar, so that they might one day be reunited with their families.) The book, Gallery noted, also weaves together two “intertwined wartime love stories.” The proposal has been acquired in Italy and Norway, and, at press time, auctions were underway in the U.K. and the Netherlands. Mazzeo (The Widow Clicquot) was represented by agent Stacey Glick at Dystel & Goderich