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A reissue of the classic 1975 memoir that Elie Wiesel called "deeply stirring . . . important and enriching."

In this significant and lasting account, Betty Jean Lifton, acclaimed author of several books on the psychology of the adopted, tells her own story of growing up at a time when adoptees were still in the closet. Twice Born recounts her early struggle with the loneliness and isolation of not knowing her birth parents; her identification, as a journalist in the Far East, with the orphans left behind by American soldiers in Japan and Vietnam; and the guilt she experiences over what feels like a betrayal of her adopted parents as she sets off on a forbidden quest to find her roots.

With the mounting suspense of a detective novel, Twice Born explores the difficulty of searching for one's past when records are sealed, and the complexity of reuniting with a birth mother from whom one has been separated by both time and social taboos. More than a vivid and poignant memoir, Lifton has given us a story of mothering and mother-loss, attachment and bonding, secrets and lies, and the human need for origins.