
Details
- ISBN 9780670920396 / 0670920398
- Title All That I am
- Author Anna Funder
- Category Modern & Contemporary Fiction (post C 1945)
- Format Hardcover
- Year 2011
- Pages 384
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Imprint Viking
- Language English
- Dimensions 165mm x 242mm x 37mm
One September morning, elderly Ruth Wesemann wakes to the sound of a parcel being delivered to her door. Inside she finds a tattered little notebook. Opening its delicate pages she meets with a flood of memories... It's 1933 and she is back in her light-filled flat in Berlin.
One September morning, elderly Ruth Wesemann wakes to the sound of a parcel being delivered to her door. Inside she finds a tattered little notebook. Opening its delicate pages she meets with a flood of memories...It's 1933 and she is back in her light-filled flat in Berlin. Hans is making caipirinhas, snow falls outside the kitchen window, and Hitler is making his first speech as Chancellor of Germany. Her life and those of her tight-knit group of friends are about to change beyond all recognition. Having dedicated themselves to resisting the Nazi's rise, they have become hunted outlaws overnight. Fleeing the country, Ruth and Hans find refuge in a basement flat in Bloomsbury, but inspired by Ruth's fearless cousin Dora, they defy the conditions of their visas and risk being sent back to Germany in order continue their dangerous resistance work. But with each breathtaking act of courage and every person that they trust, they cannot help but risk betrayal and deceit. And then, one day, they face the chilling realisation that Hitler's reach extends much further than they had thought, even to London itself.
Inspiring, tragic and based on real events, “All That I Am” is a masterful and devastating novel of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices that people endure to protect their beliefs and of discovering remarkable heroism hidden in the most unexpected of places.
Inspiring, tragic and based on real events, “All That I Am” is a masterful and devastating novel of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices that people endure to protect their beliefs and of discovering remarkable heroism hidden in the most unexpected of places.
Review
Anna Funder proved herself a first-rate reporter with Stasiland - now she appears as a compelling novelist in a dark story of German emigres in the 1930s, struggling to warn the indifferent English against the Nazis — Claire Tomalin The subtlety of Anna Funder's novel is in the elegance of her precise prose, and in her painstaking portrait of an ordinary woman swept up in extraordinary events...The result is a strong and impressively humane novel — Ruth Scurr TLS A superb novel that transcends its setting...This book is a wonder. Do, please, read it The Spectator History, like hope, is not something to be solved, but to be carried. Anna Funder has written an essential novel about how we carry the bricks of history on our backs, and how we continually build new homes from the material of the past. All That I Am is an intimate exploration of human connection and our responsibility to one another. Funder breathes life into Kundera's apercu that the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting Colum McCann A seamless and powerful tale...the book is far more than “faction”; Funder has successfully transformed the material into a narrative of individual endeavour and survival, that examines universal human themes...Dora and Ruth, especially, convey a sense of truthfulness and decency that transcends their time and should inspire us, even now, to expose injustice and tyranny — Rachel Hore Independent on Sunday The strengths of Funder's writing are emotional and imaginative.In what she has to say about love, loss and betrayal there is profound truth The Times
Prizes
Winner of Barbara Jefferis Award 2012.
Winner of Miles Franklin Literary Award 2012.
Anna Funder is the author of the international bestseller Stasiland, which won the 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize and was published in 20 countries and translated into 16 languages. She is the recipient of numerous awards, and a former DAAD and Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. Anna Funder grew up in Melbourne and Paris and lives in Sydney with her husband and family.
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