Latest Anne Frank book unveils new discoveries

(AFP PHOTO/HO)

More than 6,000 letters, photographs, and documents said to be found recently in the attic of the Frank family home are being transformed into a new book, Treasures from the Attic, set to be released in November 2010.

The Bookseller (bookseller.com) reports the book will include letters from Anne Frank's father, Otto, when he was held in Auschwitz as well as his descriptions of the search for his family after the Second World War and his discovery of Anne's diaries.

" Treasures from the Attic reads like a novel: it's an epic, fateful, family saga, and tells the full story of Anne's family both before, during and after the war," stated Michael Dover, editor-in-chief of the book's publisher, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. "It contrasts the normality of family life with the horrors of persecution, deportation, and the concentration camps. And through it we gain new insight into Anne and her iconic diary. It's one of those unique documents that portrays innocence and humanity, suffering and survival in the starkest and most moving terms."

The book's author, Mirjam Pressler has published several titles based on Anne Frank's life, including the updated 1997 edition of her famed The Diary of a Young Girl, which spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

The Frank family, who lived in Amsterdam, went into hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. After two years the family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died a year later. Her father, who discoverd the diaries, was the family's only survivor.

Anne Frank's diaries were published in English as The Diary of a Young Girl in 1952. The book, since translated into more than 60 languages, has sold more than 530,000 copies over the past 10 years.