Audiobooks by Martin Sixsmith

My Sins Go With Me: A Story of Resistance

Why did acts of sabotage by the Dutch Resistance during World War Two, that saved countless Jews from the camps, remain largely hidden to the present day? This is the story of the remarkable bravery and heroism, and also of terrible betrayal. Anna-Maria van der Vaart is 104, remarkably independent despite her failing eyesight, living on the south coast of England. During the darkest days of the war, in her home country of Holland, she sheltered Allied pilots, gave refuge to persecuted Jews and stood up to the Nazis by participating in audacious acts of resistance. The Dutch turned more Jews over to the Nazis than any other nation. There were traitors in every Resistance cell, the juxtaposition of valour and treachery poignant and tragic. A chance meeting with Anna-Maria led to her telling him her story, together with those of the Resistance members with whom she had contact or whose deeds she recollected, the people she helped and others who were determined to destroy them. In interviews with those who survived, in Dutch and German archives, personal diaries, photo libraries and occasionally contentious memoirs by those with plenty to hide, Martin Sixsmith came across a drama on a scale he could never have imagined. In My Sins Go With Me, he gives as wide as possible a picture of those who resisted and those who threw in their lot with their fellow Aryans from Hitler's Germany, endeavouring to understand the decisions taken by both sides and learning that it was not a simple choice, not merely a question of courage and honour versus cowardice and greed.

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Julie Teal, TBD (Narrator)

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Ayesha's Gift: A daughter's search for the truth about her father

**FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING PHILOMENA, MADE INTO THE AWARD-WINNING FILM STARRING STEVEN COOGAN AND JUDI DENCH** Ayesha's Gift is the true story of a young woman, born in Pakistan, living in Britain, whose life is thrown into desperate turmoil by the violent death of her father. The Pakistani authorities talk of suicide, but why would Ayesha's happy, gentle father kill himself? Ayesha's quest to find the truth takes her away from her safe English existence and into Pakistan, where she is met with threats, violence and smiling perjurers. She is warned that her life is in danger; powerful, ruthless men have reasons to want her silenced. But there are things she needs to know, that compel her to press on with her search for the truth. Was her father an innocent victim? Can she continue to revere the image of him she grew up with, that of a good, loving parent? Or will she be forced to accept that her father was not the person she thought he was? As the two countries she had considered home reveal themselves as foreign and inimical, Ayesha is forced to confront the tormented issues of identity and belonging. When she travels to Pakistan, Martin Sixsmith goes with her. A shared tragedy and an unlikely friendship lead them both to question the things that give meaning to their lives, and ultimately to find solace in the common human values of kindess and respect. 'Written at thriller pace' Telegraph 'Wonderful . . . What I find so striking about Ayesha's Gift is that it's a book in which the writer is changed by the writing of the book' Andrew Marr

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Nina Wadia, TBD (Narrator)

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The Russia Conundrum: How the West Fell For Putin’s Power Gambit – and How to Fix It

Brought to you by Penguin. 'I'm a fairly calm fellow; I don't usually get het up about things. But I was, let's say, concerned when I tuned into the Moscow Echo radio station and heard that the Kremlin had put a price on my head. The announcement didn't quite say 'dead or alive'. But it came close...' Mikhail Khodorkovsky, March 2021 Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime - and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey, from Soviet youth to international oil executive, powerful insider to political dissident, and now a high-profile voice seeking to reconcile East and West. With unparalleled insight, written with Sunday Times bestselling author Martin Sixsmith, The Russia Conundrum exposes the desires and damning truths of Putin's Russia, and provides an answer to the West on how it must challenge the Kremlin - in order to pave the way for a better future. © Mikhail Khodorkovsky & Martin Sixsmith 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Martin Sixsmith, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Author), Jonathan Keeble (Narrator)

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Russia: The Wild East: The complete BBC Radio 4 series

Power struggles have a constant presence in Martin Sixsmith’s story of Russia. Collected here in 50 episodes, he chronicles the Mongol hordes invading in the 13th century, through the iron autocratic fists of successive Tsars, to the fall of the Soviet Union and Russia’s re-emergence as a superpower.Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great – all left their mark on a nation that pursued expansion to the East, West and South. Many Tsars flirted with reform, but the gap between the rulers and the ruled widened until, in 1917, the doomed last Tsar, Nicholas II, abdicated. After the whirlwind of the revolution, the Bolsheviks struggled to consolidate their victory. To rescue the economy and save the regime, Lenin made concessions to the people. But after his death, Stalin introduced forced collectivisation and industrialisation, condemning the Soviet people to conditions worse than those experienced under the Tsars. Nikita Khrushchev reversed the worst excesses of Stalinism, and in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on radical reforms of the communist system – unleashing unforeseen consequences that swept him from power and destroyed the USSR. Martin Sixsmith brings his firsthand experience of reporting from Russia in the 1980s and ‘90s to his narrative, witnessing the critical moment when the Soviet Union lost its grip on power. He asks if the recurring patterns of Russian history can help us understand what has happened since 1991, when the promise of Western-style democracy aroused so many hopes for change. Eyewitness accounts, archive recordings and personal testimony enrich his narrative, as well as readings from Russian authors and historians such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vasily Grossman, plus music by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and others.

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Martin Sixsmith (Narrator)

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Philomena

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Judi Dench: the heartbreaking true story of an Irishwoman and the secret she kept for 50 years. When she became pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to a convent to be looked after as a "fallen woman." Then the nuns took her baby from her and sold him, like thousands of others, to America for adoption. Fifty years later, Philomena decided to find him. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Philomena' s son was trying to find her. Renamed Michael Hess, he had become a leading lawyer in the first Bush administration, and he struggled to hide secrets that would jeopardize his career in the Republican Party and endanger his quest to find his mother. A gripping expos'e told with novelistic intrigue, Philomena pulls back the curtain on the role of the Catholic Church in forced adoptions and on the love between a mother and son who endured a lifelong separation.

Martin Sixsmith (Author), John Curless (Narrator)

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Philomena

Now a major film starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan Falling pregnant as a teenager in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. She spent the next fifty years secretly searching for him, unaware that he was searching for her from across the Atlantic. A compelling and deeply moving true story of human love and loss, both heart-breaking yet ultimately redemptive.

Martin Sixsmith (Author), John Curless (Narrator)

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