|
|
|
 |
|
|
Anne C. Voorhoeve
|
| July 21 |
| Einundzwanzigster Juli |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
95,000 words / 505,000 signs |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
Content: |
|
|
On July 20, 1944, 14-year-old Philippa "Fritzi" Bedamer's life was irrevocably changed. Throughout the warm weeks of summer spent relaxing with her relatives at their castle in Wurttemberg, Fritzi had sensed that something was brewing beneath the tranquil, summer skies. She was surprised by her aunt's frequent criticism of the leaders of the Third Reich, and had more than once overheard her relatives exchanging puzzling snippets of conversation that hinted of a plot of some kind.
The peaceful summer comes to an abrupt end when a hysterical maid rushes in to report what she has just heard on the radio: there has been an assassination attempt on the beloved Führer - and he has survived! Her aunt's reaction makes Fritzi suspect that she knows more. By the next day, July 21, she is certain of it. Fritzi's uncle, Georg von Lautlitz, was involved in the assassination attempt, and has been shot. Aunt Ina's husband, Eckhardt, has been arrested along with a group of conspirators. From one day to the next, nothing would ever be the same again. Hitler's state police strike back at once, taking revenge on the family of the would-be assassins.
It is now 1947, and Fritzi looks back on how she and the surviving members of the von Lautlitz family survived the war's end and a difficult new beginning. Their experiences in prison and knowledge about the background of the assassination attempt on Hitler will encourage Germany's future generations to lead upright, respectable lives - this is what strengthens Fritzi in her decision not to keep her transgressions during the war to herself. Instead, she announces that in the summer of 1944 she and her girlfriends denounced the Polish guest worker Pjotr, which led to his being lynched. Only now does Fritzi finally feel free to think about her own future, a future devoted the memory of the members of her family who sacrificed everything so that others might have a better life. |
|
|
|
|
The Author: |
|
|
Anne Charlotte Voorhoeve was born in 1963 in Germany. She studied Political Science, American Studies and Ancient History at the University of Mainz and Comparative Literature at the University of Maryland. She has worked as a newspaper and book editor, in public relations for a Lutheran monastery, and since 2000 as a freelance writer. Lilly unter den Linden ("Lilly under the Linden Trees"), her first screenplay, was nominated for the 2003 Prix Europa. The novel adaptation, enthusiastically received by reviewers and readers alike, was nominated for a number of young adult literature prizes in 2005. Her novel Liverpool Street has been sold to Belgium (Dutch), Canada, Denmark, France and French speaking countries, the Netherlands, Spain and Spanish speaking countries, the United Kingdom and the USA. |
|
|
|
|
Rights Sold: |
|
|
Audio Rights Germany, Dutch, Spanish Worldwide |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
