My mother, with her wartime childhood, refused to set foot on German soil. But in 1975, I was headed to Berlin. At the airport, she took the gold Virgin Mary from her neck and placed it around mine. Till then my life had been enveloped in a “Britain-won-the-war” tale. In time I would become a novelist, and learn to see the novel as a counter-narrative to society’s story. For now, I was picking up material.
How did Germany face its wartime heritage? I lodged with an old man on the Nazi War Crimes Register, found a job, took trips beyond the Berlin Wall and into the communist Eastern Zone. Those experiences fuelled my 1992 debut novel On Bended Knees. And began a lifetime’s investigation of how the guilt and traumas of war are passed down to succeeding generations.
