The Undertaking

Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2014, this is an immensely powerful novel about an ordinary German couple trying to build a life amidst the trauma of World War II. The debut novel by the author of The Colony, longlisted for the 2022 Booker PrizeA soldier on the Russian Front marries a photograph of a woman he has never met. Hundreds of miles away in Berlin, the woman marries a photograph of the soldier. It is a contract of business rather than love. When the newlywed strangers finally meet, however, passion blossoms and they begin to imagine a life together under the bright promise of Nazi Germany. But as the tide of war turns and Allied enemies come ever closer, the couple find themselves facing the terrible consequences of being ordinary people stained with their small share of an extraordinary guilt...