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Title details for April in Paris by Michael Wallner - Available

April in Paris

by Michael Wallner
Paul Michael
Audiobook
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A suspenseful and dramatic story of impossible love between a German soldier and a French Resistance fighter in World War Two Paris.
In 1943, Michel Roth is a young soldier working in the German army’s back offices in occupied Paris. But his fluency in French gets Roth a new task when the Gestapo find themselves in need of a translator for the confessions of interrogated French resisters.
After work Roth chooses another path – he slips out of his hotel carrying a bag of civilian clothes and steals into an alley where he changes personas, becoming Monsieur Antoine, a young Frenchman. He strolls the streets of Paris, where one day he meets Chantal, daughter of an antiquarian bookseller. They fall in love, and when Chantal warns him away from the notorious café Turachevsky, favoured nightspot for German officers and the French women who entertain them, Michel believes it is out of jealousy. Too late he discovers that she is a member of the Resistance, and his naiveté leaves Michel on the other side of the SS interrogation machine.
What follows is a tale of desperate cat and mouse through Paris, and into the devastated French countryside at the end of the war, when neighbours are quick to betray neighbours, and even to take revenge into their own hands.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 3, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415936948
      • File size: 212627 KB
      • Duration: 07:22:58

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      This German novel, set in occupied Paris in 1943, is about a German translator who decides to blend in with the French as much as possible. Speaking perfect French, he becomes "Monsieur Antoine" and starts wandering through Paris. When he spots Chantal in a bookstore, he is immediately infatuated and manages to become her lover. Then he finds out that she's a member of the Resistance. Paul Michael reads this book with contrived German and French accents that jar. In addition, the first chapters of the book contain some dialogue in French, which is inaccessible to most listeners. The clunky translation of the novel doesn't help, and while Michael does his best to provide atmosphere, it's hard to suspend disbelief. K.M. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 12, 2007
      Wallner's harrowing debut, a love story of sorts though there's little romance, rings with authenticity. In 1943, Corporal Roth, a 22-year-old translator in the German occupation forces in France, is reassigned to SS headquarters in Paris, where his job is to translate the confessions of members of the resistance as they are being tortured. While strolling through the city, Roth encounters a beautiful young woman and is instantly smitten. Because he can speak French flawlessly, Roth takes the identity of "Antoine" and pursues the young lady, Chantal, with tragic results. Chantal is a member of the French resistance, and while Roth isn't a coldhearted Nazi, he is a German and his obsession leads him ever downward until he's accused of being a traitor. Many European imports these days read like pale imitations of genre novels by Americans, but this sterling period piece will strike readers as distinctively and refreshingly German in its concerns.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.