Searching for the remnants of his family, Leonard Kniffel left Chicago in 2000 to live in Poland.
The author's search begins inauspiciously, but he soon meets a local wine merchant and her son, who are eager to reveal the secrets of Nowe Miasto Lubawskie, the town near which his grandmother was born. With them, he begins to master his ancestral language and learn the ways of the community.

Kniffel's search for a connection to Poland is propelled by memories of the stories his grandmother told him about her emigration to Michigan in 1913. In returning to Poland himself, Kniffel sought and found a bridge to the "Great Migration" that changed the lives of so many millions and millions yet to come.

LEONARD KNIFFEL is the editor and publisher of American Libraries, the magazine of the American Library Association. Born and raised in Michigan, he holds masters degrees in English and library science from Wayne State University in Detroit. He now lives and works in Chicago.