SELECTED AS A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
A SUNDAY TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF 2022
Born and raised in America, Mildred Harnack was twenty-six and living in Germany when she witnessed the meteoric rise of the Nazi party. She began holding secret meetings in her apartment, forming a small band of political activists set on helping Jews escape, denouncing Hitler and calling for revolution. When the Second World War began, she became a spy, couriering top-secret intelligence to the Allies.
In this astonishing work of non-fiction, Harnack's great-great-niece Rebecca Donner draws on extensive archival research, fusing elements of biography, political thriller and scholarly detective story to tell a powerful, epic tale of an enigmatic woman nearly erased by history.
Review
Reads like a thriller . . . Written in a pacey, suspenseful present tense, it's biography with a pulse . . . a superb, sure-footed work of historical detection conceived with a powerful intelligence - Sunday Times
Astonishing . . . wilder and more expansive than a standard-issue biography . . . a real-life thriller with a cruel ending - New York Times
A beautifully rich portrait of a very brave woman. While never less than scrupulously researched, this biography explodes the genre of "biography": experimental but achieved, Donner's story reads with the speed of a thriller, the depth of a novel and the urgency of an essay, like some deeply compelling blend of Alan Furst and W.G. Sebald -- JAMES WOOD
Donner questions what motivates someone to risk their life for the sake of their beliefs in a gripping story that reads like a political thriller - Observer
Written in a fizzing present tense, the book in places reads like a spy novel . . . Donner writes in beautiful, crisp prose (like her great-great-aunt, as quotes from Mildred's letters reveal) . . . The result is a work that transports us to a period now slipping from living memory but that contains vital lessons for our own time - Herald
A tour de force of investigation . . . gripping - Economist
A thrilling and inspiring book. It is a treasure trove for lovers of biography, new writing and the history of the Third Reich - Scotsman
A stunning literary achievement. Rebecca Donner forges a new kind of biography - almost novelistic in style and tone, this scholarly work resurrects the courageous life of Mildred Harnack. A relentless sleuth in the archives, Donner has written a page-turner story of espionage, love and betrayal -- KAI BIRD, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
A lively read . . . Mildred Harnack has received proper recognition at last - Financial Times
Pacey . . . an impressive piecing together of fragments . . . a memorial to Mildred Harnack - Spectator
Book Description
The thrilling and previously unknown story of the woman who led one of the largest anti-Nazi resistance groups in Germany, now a New York Times bestseller
About the Author
Rebecca Donner is the New York Times bestselling author of three critically acclaimed books. She is a 2022 Guggenheim fellow and the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography, the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, and the Chautauqua Prize. Donner was inspired to write All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days after her grandmother gave her a bundle of Mildred's letters.
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