'Anna Funder's utterly compelling first novel All That I Am is about the heroic and largely tragic fate of a small group of left-wing German activists who opposed the rise of Hitler. It centres on two real people: the playwright Ernst Toller (famously eulogized by his friend W H Auden), and one of his associates, Ruth Koplowitz. Ruth was also a friend of Toller, and came to live in Sydney after WW2, where Anna got to know her well in later life. Their lives were tied together by the charismatic, passionate Dora - All That I Am vividly, passionately and irresistibly brings back to life their struggles, their hopes, their fears and their fates.'
Source: Penguin News, 6 October 2010
Sighted: 11/10/2010
'To understand their characters' border crossings - historical, transnational, personal, physical and generic - Australian writers, Anna Funder and David Sornig researched their Berlin settings in situ, in literature and through writing praxis. Berlin crossings can be mapped from East to West and ideologically from left to right, through traumatic national history, biographies and authorial backstories.' (Introduction)
