On Bended Knees

<p><b>The Second World War is over, but young Tomas learns that Europe’s wounds have not yet healed.</b></p><p><i>Discover the 30th anniversary edition of a Whitbread shortlisted novel - available in the U.S. for the first time.</i></p><p>“You come to see [Tomas] is conserving himself deliberately against the old suffering, the tired old guilt of the adults… Simplicity is a great virtue, in novels as elsewhere. After all, it can only be produced from sincerity.” <i>- Penelope Fitzgerald</i></p><p>It’s 1966. Young Tomas is taught by English war veterans, the adults around him haunted by memories of war. He walks the ruins of Coventry with his Gran, the city still rebuilding from the blitz. But his mother is German, and Tomas is torn between two worldviews.</p><p>As he nears adulthood Tomas heads to 1970s Berlin. He’s taken in by his enigmatic uncle, a blind, disgraced Nazi soldier. Arm in arm, they explore a drastically changing Berlin. Out in Dresden