What is the name of the book and when was it published?
Candlelight in a Storm: Born to be a Berliner was published 7/27/2015.
What’s the book’s first line?
“Just three years old, Renate was not aware of the situation. She was right in the eye of the kind of storm in which the skies darken to drop bombs.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
It is the historical biography of a woman born during World War II and fleeing the violence there, later fleeing communist regimes as a teenager, and traveling the world; her story is at once colorful and harrowing. J. F. Kennedy came to Berlin and said “Ich bin ein Berliner”, signifying that Germany did not need to be forever tarnished with the legacy of the Nazi party, and there was a generation of Germans looking to establish peace and freedom in the country. This book is the ode to this generation.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
I have been living in Germany for decades and have heard personal stories covering various features of the times. I thought what if I gave them a voice? What if I project these facts focusing on a girl fleeing from Berlin under bombardment to a place later to be occupied by the Soviets? Encountering oppression she escapes from there at the age of 15. Even in the free world her struggle goes on. For her and her generation, the candlelight burned on amid the storm. It is the story of my own wife. It is timely in view of the refugee crisis in Europe today, division of Ukraine and imminent return of the cold war.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
The features of the book have a wide range: World War II, Sevastopol, bombardment, separation and reunion of lovers, cold war, , espionage, communist oppression, border control, escape, Berlin Wall and its fall. According to a review, “if you are interested in World War II and haven’t gotten the other side of the story, Candlelight in a Storm is a good place to begin, and succeeds in telling an oft-neglected side of the history of these events”.