Een boek met een prachtig en ontroerend verhaal.




Touching story and politically interesting too, a good read and well written!!
For me, the most devastating part of the book lay in the decision by the nuns to hide the search of each participant from each other. While finding my birth mother is not a search I’ve ever undertaken, I felt the sense of urgency Michael must have had about him especially as he tried to trace his roots before succumbing to complications of AIDS. For him to die, not knowing that his mother searched for him from the day he was taken from her was a moral tragedy that could have been averted. I can only imagine how shattered Philomena must have felt upon realizing that, not only had her son been searching for her, but that he was buried in the very place she had turned to for answers. Leaving aside the religious issues involved, I found it difficult to fathom how anyone might have thought that it was a good idea to act in that manner, and how either party benefited from being separated from each other. Even if they had only a few years before Michael’s death, that brief time could have given answers and comfort to both mother and son.

Martin Sixsmith impressively conveys the tenor of a place and era in which religion was allowed to dominate the state


NB: Engelse versie gelzen