All That I Am: Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award

Anna Funder

Aug 2011 · Penguin Group Australia

About this ebook

WINNER OF THE MILES FRANKLIN LITERARY AWARD
'A ripper.' The Australian
'Gripping.' Sydney Morning Herald
'Brilliant ... A superb novel.' The Spectator

When Hitler comes to power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers become hunted outlaws overnight. United in their resistance to the madness and tyranny of Nazism, they flee the country. Dora, passionate and fearless; her lover, the great playwright Ernst Toller; her younger cousin Ruth and Ruth's husband Hans find refuge in London. Here they take awe-inspiring risks in order to continue their work in secret. But England is not the safe-haven they think it is, and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart.

Some seventy years later, Ruth is living out her days in Sydney, making an uneasy peace with the ghosts of her past, and a part of history that has all but been forgotten.
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'A gripping story of love and betrayal. Dora is the most attractive fictional heroine in a long time.' New Statesman

'[Funder's] political and moral intelligence shine even more brightly than in Stasiland; the compassionate but unsentimental truthfulness towards her characters even more moving for being interwoven into a narrative of such complexity.' Raimond Gaita, Books of the Year, The Weekend Australian

'A sweeping first novel that cover love and war, friendship and betrayal, and the bonds that define a life. It is a moving and ambitious work.' Ann Patchett

Ratings and reviews

I read this book slowly. I was never disappointed when I returned to it. I found it to be an interesting view point from which to view the Nazi occupation of Germany. It was not too gloomy as these stories often are. For me the character development was satisfying and the pace just right for a read before bed.

I normally love books about this era but I found this book incredibly hard to enjoy and eventually have up trying to read it.

Beautiful and poignant. Wonderfully written.

About the author

Anna Funder is the author of Stasiland, All That I Am and Wifedom – each book an international bestseller, published in many countries – and the novella The Girl with the Dogs. Her books have won multiple literary awards, including the UK’s premier award for non-fiction, the Samuel Johnson Prize, for Stasiland; Australia’s most prestigious, the Miles Franklin, for her novel All That I Am; and the renowned French prize the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, for Wifedom.

Originally trained as an international human rights lawyer, Anna has lived in Melbourne, Paris, Berlin and New York City. She now lives with her family in Sydney.

annafunder.com