An award-winner “writes with grace and conviction about the intrusion of the political on the domestic and the thrill of falling in love over a cause” (New York Times Book Review).
When eighteen-year-old Ruth Becker visits her cousin Dora in Munich in 1923, she meets the love of her life, the dashing young journalist Hans Wesemann, and eagerly joins in the heady activities of the militant political Left in Germany. Ten years later, Ruth and Hans are married and living in Berlin when Hitler is elected chancellor. Together with Dora and her lover, Ernst Toller, the celebrated poet and self-doubting revolutionary, the four become hunted outlaws overnight and are forced to flee to London. Inspired by the fearless Dora to breathtaking acts of courage, the friends risk betrayal and deceit as they dedicate themselves to a dangerous mission: to inform the British government of the very real Nazi threat to which it remains willfully blind.
Gripping and inspiring, All that I Am is a masterful novel of the risks and sacrifices some people make for their beliefs, and of heroism hidden in the most unexpected places.
“An intimate exploration of human connection and our responsibility to one another” —Colum McCann, National Book Award winning author of Let the Great World Spin
“Moving and ambitious.” —Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake
“Enthralling.” —O, the Oprah Magazine
“A literary work as suspenseful as the best thrillers.” —Booklist
“A remarkable story told with clarity and precision . . . insight and literary grace.” —Rachel Cusk, The Guardian
“This book is a wonder.” —Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator
“Imaginative, compassionate and convincing.” —Wall Street Journal
ANNA FUNDER is the author of Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, which has been published in twenty countries and translated into sixteen languages. In 2004, Stasiland won the Samuel Johnson Prize. Anna Funder’s forthcoming novel, All That I Am, is to be published in sixteen countries and will be available from HarperCollins in 2012. Visit her online at annafunder.com.
What People are Saying About This
Rachel Cusk
“A remarkable story told with clarity and precision, along with moments of insight and literary grace.”
Colum McCann
“History, like hope, is not something to be solved, but to be carried. Anna Funder has written an essential novel about how we carry the bricks of history on our backs…”
Ann Patchett
“In ALL THAT I AM, Anna Funder delivers a sweeping first novel that covers love and war, friendship and betrayal, and the bonds that define a life. It is a moving and ambitious work.”
Betsey Burton
“Like Hillary Mantel’s brilliant WOLF HALL, Funder’s new book is not just a novel or thriller, and is also far more than mere history.”
