
The Berliners
Emma Harding(Author)
John Murray Publishers Ltd
Published on 16. February 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-5293-7620-3 (ISBN)
Description
'Sometimes I get fanciful and think the buildings speak. That all their history is locked into the walls and if you listened closely enough, you could hear all the people who'd once been there.'
Sigi lived upstairs from Sara at Friedrichstrasse 19 yet before they met, Sara had no idea that Berlin could be so thrillingly irreverent or that sex could be so intoxicatingly wonderful. But then came the war, and hunger, loneliness and barbed wire. It was just as a young girl, a protegee of The Academy of Magical Arts situated in Friedrichstrasse at the start of the century, had predicted.
Battered and divided, Berlin, like its people, endured. Hans yearns to be part of the boundary-breaking spirit of the age but he's haunted by his mother's part in the war and the absence of a father. Ilse, who escaped from the East, wants nothing more than the freedom she risked her life for.
In 1989 in a wild act of spontaneous joy, Heike leapt from the Wall into the arms of a stranger from the West. Thirty years later, she recognises that what she'd willed to be destiny was nothing more than naivety. Recently divorced, she moves into Friedrichstrasse, to begin a new life. But it's impossible not to hear the echoes of the secrets and lies, visions and misunderstandings, lost loves and fatal mistakes, that have come before her.
Time-travelling between decades, through the interlocking lives of six people, Friedrichstrasse 19 relives the tumultuous experience of a city on the frontline of history.
Sigi lived upstairs from Sara at Friedrichstrasse 19 yet before they met, Sara had no idea that Berlin could be so thrillingly irreverent or that sex could be so intoxicatingly wonderful. But then came the war, and hunger, loneliness and barbed wire. It was just as a young girl, a protegee of The Academy of Magical Arts situated in Friedrichstrasse at the start of the century, had predicted.
Battered and divided, Berlin, like its people, endured. Hans yearns to be part of the boundary-breaking spirit of the age but he's haunted by his mother's part in the war and the absence of a father. Ilse, who escaped from the East, wants nothing more than the freedom she risked her life for.
In 1989 in a wild act of spontaneous joy, Heike leapt from the Wall into the arms of a stranger from the West. Thirty years later, she recognises that what she'd willed to be destiny was nothing more than naivety. Recently divorced, she moves into Friedrichstrasse, to begin a new life. But it's impossible not to hear the echoes of the secrets and lies, visions and misunderstandings, lost loves and fatal mistakes, that have come before her.
Time-travelling between decades, through the interlocking lives of six people, Friedrichstrasse 19 relives the tumultuous experience of a city on the frontline of history.
Reviews / Votes
An ingenious and ambitious debut, formally inventive, rich with character and incident * Daily Telegraph *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
John Murray Press
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
182 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5293-7620-3 (9781529376203)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Emma Harding
Friedrichstrasse 19
E-Book
02/2022
John Murray Publishers Ltd
€3.99
Available for download
Person
Emma Harding grew up in Birmingham and works as a BBC radio producer. Friedrichstrasse 19 is her first novel.