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Gudrun Mouw was born Gudrun Dorothea Wacker in East Prussia in 1944. After her maternal grandfather received deportation papers to Auschwitz, she became a refugee. At the age of 7, she arrived in the United States with her parents as a displaced person.
Gudrun Mouw received her Master’s Degree in English Literature in 1969. In 1978, she received her yoga instructor certificate from the Integral Yoga Institute founded by the late guru Swami Satchidananda.
She has worked as a community college English teacher, a university librarian, a columnist and a California poet-in-the-schools. Ms. Mouw has lived in the Santa Barbara area for 38 years, writing, as well as teaching yoga and meditation.
Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as PRAIRIE SCHOONER, PRACTICAL MYSTIC, THE CHARITON REVIEW, CALYX and others. Ms. Mouw is the recipient of a Sri Chinmoy Poetry Award, a Joycean Arts Guild Award and a Gladys Brown Award for poetry.
Reviewed by Tracy A. Fischer for Readers' Favorite
In a simply lovely and engaging story by author Gudrun Mouw, From Ashes into Light tells a unique story through the voices of three separate and special voices. Ruth, a young Jewish woman living in Austria during Kristallnacht; Saqapaya, a Native American man living in California during the Spanish conquest, and Friede Mai, a young woman who lived through the horrors of WWII, only to immigrate to the United States with her family to face more difficulties, all lend their voices to this beautiful story. All three narrators are examples of people in the most trying, difficult, and heart-breaking of times, but all of them also find an inner strength and resilience that is both admirable and shows the true strength of the human spirit amidst all of the horror one might encounter.
I loved From Ashes into Light. Loved. It. How's that for a review? Author Gudrun Mouw has done an absolutely wonderful job in creating characters that her readers will relate to, sympathize with, care about, and think of long after the last page is done. If that isn't a hallmark of a great author, I don't know what is. The scenes set in this story are so realistic that you will look up from the page, surprised to find yourself in your comfortable familiar surroundings. I highly recommend From Ashes into Light to any reader who enjoys a fantastic work of fiction with strong and interesting characters, works with a historical bent, or just a plain great read. I am very much looking forward to reading more from author Gudrun Mouw. With her talent, it is certain that she won't remain undiscovered for long!
