Winner of Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction
The Zookeeper's War
A story of passion and sacrifice in a city battered by war ...
The Zookeeper's War
A story of passion and sacrifice in a city battered by war ...
It is 1943 and each night in a bomb shelter beneath the Berlin Zoo an Australian woman, Vera, shelters with her German husband, Axel, the zoo’s director.
Together, they struggle to look after the animals through the air raids and food shortages of war. When the zoo’s staff is drafted into the army, forced labourers are sent in as replacements. At first, Vera finds the idea abhorrent, but gradually she realises that the new workers are the zoo’s only hope, and forms an unexpected bond with one of them.
This is a city where a foreign accent is a constant source of suspicion, where busybodies report the names of neighbours’s dinner guest to the Gestapo. As tensions mount in the closing days of the war, nothing, and no one, it seems, can be trusted.
The Zookeeper’s War is a powerful novel of a marriage under siege in a collapsing city. It confronts not only the brutality of war but the possibility of heroism – and delivers an ending that is both shocking and deeply moving.
Purchase The Zookeeper's War
Together, they struggle to look after the animals through the air raids and food shortages of war. When the zoo’s staff is drafted into the army, forced labourers are sent in as replacements. At first, Vera finds the idea abhorrent, but gradually she realises that the new workers are the zoo’s only hope, and forms an unexpected bond with one of them.
This is a city where a foreign accent is a constant source of suspicion, where busybodies report the names of neighbours’s dinner guest to the Gestapo. As tensions mount in the closing days of the war, nothing, and no one, it seems, can be trusted.
The Zookeeper’s War is a powerful novel of a marriage under siege in a collapsing city. It confronts not only the brutality of war but the possibility of heroism – and delivers an ending that is both shocking and deeply moving.
Purchase The Zookeeper's War
Other formats
Libros de Bolsillo, Spain
as Seven Steps from Spring |
Quercus Books, UK & Ireland
|
Kindle Edition
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"For its command of engrossing plot and vivid historical setting, for the ethical seriousness that informs every incident and entanglement, for the freshness and vivacity of a new voice ... the judges recommend Steven Conte's The Zookeeper's War."
JUDGES' REPORT, PRIME MINISTER'S AWARD FOR FICTION
"Beautifully textured and extremely well realised ... a clever, inspired, insightful, tension-filled drama."
BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER
JUDGES' REPORT, PRIME MINISTER'S AWARD FOR FICTION
"Beautifully textured and extremely well realised ... a clever, inspired, insightful, tension-filled drama."
BOOKSELLER+PUBLISHER