It's 1944 when the twin sisters arrive at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and shared games of their childhood.

As part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, the girls experience privileges and horrors unknown to others, and they find themselves changed, stripped of the personalities they once shared, their identities altered by the burdens of guilt and pain.

That winter, at a concert orchestrated by Mengele, Pearl disappears. Stasha grieves for her twin, but clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive. When the camp is liberated by the Red Army, she and her companion Feliks--a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin--travel through Poland's devastation. Undeterred by injury, starvation, or the chaos around them, motivated by equal parts danger and hope, they encounter hostile villagers, Jewish resistance fighters, and fellow refugees, their quest enabled by the notion that Mengele may be captured and brought to justice within the ruins of the Warsaw Zoo. As the young survivors discover what has become of the world, they must try to imagine a future within it.

A superbly crafted story, told in a voice as exquisite as it is boundlessly original, MISCHLING defies every expectation, traversing one of the darkest moments in human history to show us the way toward ethereal beauty, moral reckoning, and soaring hope.


1944 年，雙胞胎姊妹與母親、爺爺來到奧斯威辛集中營。在暗不見天日的新世界裡，查果斯基兩姊妹佩羅與史塔莎個性相同，也因此成為彼此的避風港，透過兩人才知道的語言和童年的遊戲相互慰藉。

在門格勒的實驗區中，雙胞胎是實驗的對象，她們能享有一些特權，但也經歷了不為人知的痛楚與恐怖，她們發現自己變了，曾經相同的個性不復存在，罪孽與痛苦的重擔使得她們性情大變。

那年冬天，在門格勒精心安排的音樂會上，佩羅消失了。史塔莎雖哀傷，但仍堅信佩羅還活著。蘇聯紅軍的到來解放了集中營，一心想為孿生兄弟報仇的菲立克斯，與史塔莎一起走過受戰火蹂躪的波蘭，他們不畏受傷、飢餓或周遭的混亂勇往直前，危險與希望促使兩人向前，一路上史塔莎與菲立克斯遇到心懷敵意的村民、猶太反抗軍和難民同胞，而兩人之所以能成行是因為門格勒可能遭到逮捕，並於華沙動物園的殘壁內伏法。當這兩位年輕的倖存者認知到世界已變了樣，他們必須設法尋求自己的未來。

本書內容極其精湛，原創敘事手法別出心裁，引發各方期待，敘說人類史上最黑暗的時刻之一，卻又向讀者展現超凡的美感、道德的檢視及躍升的希望。