DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

The Secret Purposes

David Baddiel author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Little, Brown Book Group

Published:7th Apr '05

Should be back in stock very soon

The Secret Purposes cover

* National press (SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, METRO) and nationwide Adrail posters to highlight magnificent reviews * Ongoing author PR activity to include media interviews and appearances at literary festivals *Submitted for trade promotions *Reading copies available

Brilliantly accomplished and critically acclaimed novel of Nazi Germany and the plight of internees in wartime Britain by writer and comedian David Baddiel.

THE SECRET PURPOSES, David Baddiel's third novel, takes us into a little-known and still somewhat submerged area of British history: the internment of German Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man during the Second World War. Isaac Fabian, on the run with his young family from Nazism in East Prussia, comes to Britain assuming he has found asylum, but instead finds himself drowning in the morass of ignorance, half-truth, prejudice, and suspicion that makes up government attitudes to German Jews in 1940. One woman, June Murray, a translator from the Ministry of Information, stands out - and when she comes to the island on a personal mission to uncover solid evidence of Nazi atrocities, her meeting with Isaac will have far-reaching consequences for both of them.

A haunting and beautifully written tale of love, displacement and survival, THE SECRET PURPOSES profoundly questions the way that truth - both personal and political - emerges from the tangle of history.

An intriguing novel about history and truth . . . The intelligence and inquiry of this book will surprise many * THE TIMES *
Wonderful . . . brilliantly realised * INDEPENDENT *
It is a sombre, clever book, but, being Baddiel, is irradiated by flashes of dark humour * Sally Vickers, SPECTATOR *
David Baddiel's excellent new novel . . . Sensitive, intelligent and deeply moving, THE SECRET PURPOSES is both a gripping read and a long overdue indictment of Britain's treatment of Jewish refugees * IMAGE *

ISBN: 9780349117461

Dimensions: 134mm x 212mm x 28mm

Weight: 280g

416 pages