The author of this novel is Krystyna Chiger. None of her family is still alive, she passed away at the age of 93 from pneumonia. She was born in 1935 in Lvov, Poland.Chiger got this idea through her own survival during hiding in a sewer during the Holocaust. No other books have been written by Chiger, although the co-author of the book, Daniel Paisner, has worked on many books, one of which is Last Man Down: A Firefighter's Story of Survival and Escape from the World Trade Center. Some of Chiger's accopmlishments were that she survived the Holocaust, published a book about it, then had that book created into a movie.