During the almost six years England was at war with Nazi Germany, Winifred and Bernard Schlesinger, Ian Buruma’s grandparents, and the film director John Schlesinger's parents, were, like so many others, thoroughly sundered from each other. Their only recourse was to write letters back and forth. And write they did, often every day. Now, in a labor of love that is also a powerful act of artistic creation, Buruma has woven his own voice in with theirs to provide the context and counterpoint necessary to bring to life not just a remarkable marriage, but a class and an age.

In 1945, one world had ended and a new, uncertain one was beginning. Regime change had come on a global scale, great cities around the world lay in ruins, and the ground was laid for more horror to come. In YEAR ZERO, an examination of the postwar years is intertwined with author Ian Buruma's father's attempted reentry into “normalcy” after his experience as a prisoner of war.