All That I Am by Anna Funder

JUDGES' COMMENTS

When Hitler came to power I was in the bath.
With a simple and portentous line worthy of Kafka, Anna Funder begins her thrilling, stylish, impeccably-researched novel about the lives and loves of a group of German anti-Hitler activists in the lead-up to World War II.

Funder's story is based on real events and real people, but to it she brings the novelist's vital contribution to the who, where and why: the what it felt like. The result is an Australian novel that intimately explores an under-examined period in world history and provides a timely reminder of the need to oppose and resist tyranny, even when the personal ramifications of such political decisions can be tragic.