A Woman in Berlin
Between April 20th and June 22nd of 1945 the anonymous author of A Woman in Berlin wrote about life within the falling city as it was sacked by the Russian Army. Fending off the boredom and deprivation of hiding, the author records her experiences, observations and meditations in this stark and...
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Between April 20th and June 22nd of 1945 the anonymous author of A Woman in Berlin wrote about life within the falling city as it was sacked by the Russian Army. Fending off the boredom and deprivation of hiding, the author records her experiences, observations and meditations in this stark and vivid diary. Accounts of the bombing, the rapes, the rationing of food and the overwhelming terror of death are rendered in the dispassionate, though determinedly optimistic prose of a woman fighting for survival amidst the horror and inhumanity of war. This diary was first published in America in 1954 in an English translation and in Britain in 1955. A German language edition was published five years later in Geneva and was met with tremendous controversy. In 2003, over forty years later, it was republished in Germany to critical acclaim - and more controversy. Newly translated into English, this diary has been unavailable since the 1960s. It is an astonishing and deeply affecting account of a woman fighting for survival amidst the horror and inhumanity of war.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781844087976 (1844087972)
Publish date: September 1st 2011
Publisher: Virago Press (UK)
Pages no: 311
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
Autobiography,
Memoir,
Biography,
History,
European Literature,
Cultural,
War,
Biography Memoir,
World War II,
German Literature,
Germany
I've read a lot of historical fiction and non-fiction set in World War II, but A Woman in Berlin is my first book written from the perspective of a German woman during the fall of Berlin. Written in diary form by an author who asked her publishers to keep her identity secret until after her death, i...
I've read a lot of historical fiction and non-fiction set in World War II, but A Woman in Berlin is my first book written from the perspective of a German woman during the fall of Berlin. Written in diary form by an author who asked her publishers to keep her identity secret until after her death, ...
I think everybody should read this book. When I began it I warned others that it is about rape in wartime. And that is true. Any subject in a good author’s hands can be worth reading. It is the ability of the author to make that subject comprehensible to readers that distinguishes a good author. We ...