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First Published:
May 2007, 248 pages
Paperback:
Apr 2008, 256 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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Set in 1943, April In Paris, by first time German novelist Wallner, is the dramatic story of an impossible love between a German soldier and a French Resistance fighter in occupied Paris.
Set in 1943, April In Paris is the dramatic story of an impossible love
between a German soldier and a French Resistance fighter in occupied Paris.
Roth, a twenty-one-year-old German soldier, has spent most of his time in
occupied Paris working in the army's back offices. But when his superiors learn
of his ability to speak accent-free French, he is abruptly transferred to
Gestapo headquarters to work as an interpreter during the interrogation of
Resistance fighters. Rather than question his role in the Nazi regime, Roth
translates with impeccable accuracy as the torture proceeds.
But when his duty ends, Roth slips away from his fellow officers, changes into
civilian clothes, and wanders aimlessly through Paris disguised as his alter ego
"Antoine." One day he is drawn into an antiquarian bookshop and becomes
enchanted with the bookseller's beautiful daughter, Chantal. The two begin to
meet and fall in love before Roth has the courage to reveal his true identity,
nor to discover Chantal's.
When a bomb placed in a popular nightclub by the Resistance kills several
high-ranking German officers, Roth finds himself not in his role as translator
but as the suspect of the SS's interrogation.
April in Paris is one of those rare books in which the emotional force of
the love story is matched by page-turning suspense. Written in an elegant and
arresting style, it is a thrilling novel by a promising new writer, who has
brought the reality of a war-torn past very much to the present.
Chapter 1
I learned about the transfer before noon. The small stripes of light had
reached the windowsill. My major came in and kept one hand on the doorknob while
gesturing to me with the other to keep my seat. He wanted to know if the hogwash
from Marseille was ready yet. I pointed to the half–written sheet still in the
typewriter. I could go when I reached the end of the page, he said.
"And the dispatch from Lagny–sur–Marne?" I asked, surprised.
"Someone else will have to do it. You're needed elsewhere."
I pressed my knees together under the table. In those days, many people were
being sent to the front.
"I'm being reassigned?"
"Rue des Saussaies has lost a translator." The major ran his hand down the
left side of his uniform coat. German Horseman's Badge, War Merit Cross. He said
he'd do all he could to get me back. I shouldn't worry, he said; my transfer
would be only temporary.
"What happened...
Life and love are both battlefields in Wallner's anguished debut of wartime suspense, translated from German, which quickly embroils the reader in the tragic double-life of 22-year-old Corporal Roth...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
France capitulated to Germany on June 25 1940 and was divided into three key zones: A German occupation zone in the north and west, a small Italian occupation zone in the southeast and unoccupied collaborationist "Vichy France" in the south (map). The French Army was disbanded except for a small force to keep domestic peace, and the French government agreed to stop members of its armed forces leaving the country and to instruct its citizens not to resist.
Despite this, some members of the French Army, led by GeneralCharles De Gaulle, escaped to England, from where he gave his famous speech on June 18th (four days after the Nazis occupied Paris) via BBC radio, in which he rallied his countrymen to continue the fight and urged that "Whatever ...
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