Uwe Wittstock

It is the most dramatic year in German literary history. In Nice, Heinrich Mann listens to the news on Radio London. Anna Seghers flees Paris on foot with her children. Lion Feuchtwanger is imprisoned in a French internment camp while the SS units close in. They all end up in Marseille, from where they try to find a way to freedom. It is here that Walter Benjamin delivers his last essay to Hannah Arendt before setting off on his escape across the Pyrenees. This is where the paths of numerous writers, intellectuals and artists cross. And this is where Varian Fry risks his life to smuggle the persecuted out of the country. In his new novel Marseille 1940, Uwe Wittstock tells of incredible courage and utter despair, of defiant hope and humanity in dark times.

Uwe Wittstock is an author and award-winning journalist who has worked for Focus, FAZ and as deputy head of the arts section and cultural correspondent for Die Welt.