To and From Nowhere

A Biographical Novel by Hedy Leonora Martens (the conclusion of Favoured Among Women)

In this gripping and moving novel, Greta and her family, treated as “non-existent” along with thousands of Russian Germans, Mennonites, and other ethnic groups displaced by Stalin, struggle to exist in the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1976.

Based on painstaking historical research and interviews with Greta’s family, To and From Nowhere tells a harrowing and beautiful story in the unusual style that author Hedy Martens has fused, combining narrative, biography, poetry, history, and personal reflection.

Hedy Leonora Martens is a writer and retired marriage and family therapist living in Winnipeg. Over three decades ago, Hedy Martens and her husband John met members of his family left behind the Iron Curtain in the Stalin years. This prompted the author’s commitment to recover these experiences of exile and honour the memory of a remarkable woman, Greta Enns.

The first volume of this project, Favoured Among Women, was published in 2010, and was called a “detailed and touching portrait of a Mennonite woman during the harsh early years of Soviet Russia” (Winnipeg Free Press).