After WWII, as Poland rebuilds, a woman claims to have letters from Chopin to her ancestor, his lover, challenging the nation's desire for an idealized portrayal of the composer.

Warsaw, 1945. The invading Nazis are gone and, in a symbolic gesture, the preserved heart of Polish composer and national hero Frédéric Chopin is returned. Under German rule, even the mention of Chopin was forbidden; now, as the war-battered nation reassembles itself, author Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz recommences work on his biography of the great man. A strange woman contacts him, carrying revelatory letters that she claims the composer wrote her great-grandmother, his lover. But is the woman a fraud? Are the letters forgeries? And since they show Chopin in a less than flattering light, would Poland prefer to suppress them?—Peter Brynmor Roberts