The Messenger

The Messenger is an extraordinary novel about a man's moral bravery that illuminates history and asks serious questions about our collective humanity.


Jan Karski was a member of the Polish resistance. He served as a courier for the underground, ferrying messages between occupied Poland and exiled Polish leaders, before he was captured and brutally tortured by the Gestapo.


Escaping from the Germans, Jan Karski was charged with the mission of his lifetime: to convey a message to the Allies about Hitler's program to exterminate the Jews of Europe. He visited Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto so that he could relate the truth about the inhuman conditions first hand when he met with officials in London and Washington. But President Roosevelt yawned when he met Karski.


The Messenger is a compelling and tragic story, translated from the French by Ian Monk, with a foreword by Mark Baker.


'Deftly crossing the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, The Messenger explores what it means to remain human in the midst of extreme brutality and indifference. This portrait of a man of exceptional courage and nobility, who bore witness to the darkest crimes of the twentieth century, is both profoundly disturbing and uplifting.' Arnold Zable