Anna Funder – författare

When Hitler seizes power in 1933, a tight-knit group of friends and lovers suddenly become hunted outlaws overnight. Dora, liberated and fearless; her lover, the great playwright Ernst Toller; Ruth; and Ruths journalist husband, Hans find refuge in London. There, using secret contacts deep inside the Nazi regime, they take breathtaking risks to warn the world of Hitlers plans for war. But England is not the safe haven they think it will be, and a single, chilling act of betrayal will tear them apart....

Based on true events, All That I Am is testament to some of the earliest—now forgotten—heroes of the resistance to Hitler.

Brought to you by Penguin.A blazing, genre-bending masterpiece from one of the most inventive writers of our timeLooking for wonder and some reprieve from the everyday, Anna Funder slips into the pages of her hero George Orwell. As she watches him create his writing self, she tries to remember her own . . .When she uncovers his forgotten wife, it''s a revelation. Eileen O''Shaughnessy''s literary brilliance shaped Orwell''s work and her practical nous saved his life. But why - and how - was she written out of the story?Using newly discovered letters from Eileen to her best friend, Funder recreates the Orwells'' marriage, through the Spanish Civil War and WW II in London. As she rolls up the screen concealing Orwell''s private life she is led to question what it takes to be a writer - and what it is to be a wife.Compelling and utterly original, Wifedom speaks to the unsung work of women everywhere today, while offering a breathtakingly intimate view of one of the most important literary marriages of the 20th century. It is a book that speaks to our present moment as much as it illuminates the past.PRAISE FOR ANNA FUNDER''Funder skilfully deploys fictional techniques to make the material jump off the page: crafted scenes with their own story-arcs, naturalistic dialogue, fully-realised characters with their own plotlines'' Independent on Sunday''Meticulous and compassionate'' London Review of Books''Rigorously researched, tenderly told'' Independent©2023 Anna Funder (P)2023 Penguin Audio

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Anna Funder''s All That I Am, a powerful love story that tells the heroic and tragic true story of the German resistance. Read by Judy Bennett and Saul Reichlin.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.