Weyburn author, Anne Lazurko has released her second novel entitled, "What Is Written on the Tongue". 

The book, which was loosely based on Lazurko’s father, is about a young man’s journey through two different wars. The character, named Sam, lived through the occupation of Holland by Nazi Germany in the Second Word War, and then is drafted by the Dutch to reclaim the colony, which is now Indonesia.  

Lazurko said that her book is a hybrid that is mostly fiction, a little bit biographical, and very historical.  

“It's looking at how an individual can live through one horror and then perpetrate it on someone else, and what that what that does to the psyche of a young person,” said Lazurko. “Because most people who are in the troops that go and fight wars are young, so what does that do to a young man?” 

Both of Lazurko’s parents are Dutch, and immigrated to Canada in 1951. They were teenagers during the Second World War, and then her dad was drafted and sent to Indonesia.  

Lazurko said that writing this novel took a huge amount of research, as it is about wars set in two different countries that she has never lived in.  

“I traveled across Java for five weeks with my sister actually doing research, which was phenomenal and also really necessary to the book because I felt like a fraud,” she said. “I didn't think I could write it without having done that travel and been there in the heat of the jungle, and seeing the place and the people so all of that kind of came into it alongside those few stories from my mum and dad.” 

She added that she took this trip in 2016, when she was around halfway done writing her book.  

“When I came back it just added so much depth to the book in terms of credibility, in a way. Also, the sights and sounds and the details and very specific places and people that I could use as prototypes for my characters and that sort of thing, so it just was it was a tremendous opportunity.” 

The book is available in book stores across the province and on Amazon. It is also out as an eBook, and will be released as an audiobook at the end of May.

Lazurko plans to have a book launch in Weyburn in the near future.  

"What Is Written on the Tongue" (ECW publicity)"What Is Written on the Tongue" (ECW publicity)
"What Is Written on the Tongue" (ECW publicity)"What Is Written on the Tongue" (ECW Press)