A story of the transcendent power of love in wartime A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a work of sweeping breadth profound compassion and lasting significance. ? Two doctors risk everything to save the life of a hunted child in this majestic debut about love loss and the unexpected ties that bind us together. 'On the morning after the Feds burned down her house and took her father Havaa woke from dreams of sea anemones.' Havaa eight years old hides in the woods and watches the blaze until her neighbor Akhmed discovers her sitting in the snow. Akhmed knows getting involved means risking his life and there is no safe place to hide a child in a village where informers will do anything for a loaf of bread but for reasons of his own he sneaks her through the forest to the one place he thinks she might be safe: an abandoned hospital where the sole remaining doctor Sonja Rabina treats the wounded. Though Sonja protests that her hospital is not an orphanage Akhmed convinces her to keep Havaa for a trial and over the course of five extraordinary days Sonja's world will shift on its axis and reveal the intricate pattern of connections that weaves together the pasts of these three unlikely companions and unexpectedly decides their fate.
