An historical 'flash-back' novel based on the life of the author's friend. It recounts the challenges faced by German emigres living abroad during the rise of Hitler and National Socialism in the 1930s, starting in Germany and then London, Czechoslovakia, Paris and New York. Written from the point of view of two characters with alternating chapters and different time scales, it is full of fascinating detail. Both contemporary lives are also recounted as they reflect on the past and as such the events and challenges met by those living outside their native land strike strange chords of today's problems. This is a very fine book indeed.
Winner, Miles Franklin Literary Award Winner, ABIA Book of the Year and Literary Fiction Book of the Year Winner, Barbara Jefferis Award Winner, Independent Bookseller Award for Best Debut Fiction and Indie Book of the Year Shortlisted, Prime Minister 's literary award for fiction Shortlisted , Western Australian Premier's Award for Fiction Ruth Becker, defiant and cantankerous, is living out her days in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. She has made an uneasy peace with the ghosts of her past-and a part of history that has been all but forgotten. Another lifetime away, it's 1939 and the world is going to war. Ernst Toller, self-doubting revolutionary and poet, sits in a New York hotel room, settling up the account of his life. When Toller's story arrives on Ruth's doorstep, their shared past slips under her defences, and she's right back among them-those friends who predicted the brutality of the Nazis and gave everything they had to stop them. Those who were tested-and in some cases found wanting-in the face of hatred, of art, of love and of history. Based on real people and events, All That I Am is a masterful and exhilarating exploration of bravery and betrayal, of the risks and sacrifices some people make for their beliefs and of heroism hidden in the most unexpected places.
