by Ian Buruma
First published 2026
Berlin, 1941. Ordinary citizens navigate an impossible landscape where survival means constant negotiation with the Nazi regime's brutal machinery. As Allied bombing intensifies and resources dwindle, families like Buruma's must make impossible choices: comply, resist, or simply endure. Each day brings new risks—informants lurk in neighborhoods, food grows scarcer, and the machinery of persecution grinds relentlessly forward. Survival demands a delicate dance of invisibility, resilience, and quiet defiance against a system designed to crush human dignity. At its heart, this is a story of human beings trapped in history's most dangerous moment, struggling to maintain their humanity when the world has gone mad.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, world-war-ii, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, resilience
Setting: Berlin, Tokyo, Shinjuku
Period: 21st-century
400 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press
Content warnings: death, violence