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Writers from John le Carré to Heinrich Böll and Bernard Schlink explore how the guilt and traumas of war are passed down to succeeding generationsMy mother, with her wartime childhood, refused to set foot on German soil. But in 1975, I was headed to Berlin. At the airport, she took the gold Virgin Mary from her neck and placed it around mine. Till then my life had been enveloped in a “Britain-won-the-war” tale. In time I would become a novelist, and learn to see the novel as a counter-narrative to society’s story. For now, I was picking up material.How did Germany face its wartime heritage? I lodged with an old man on the Nazi War Crimes Register, found a job, took trips beyond the Berlin Wall and into the communist Eastern Zone. Those experiences fuelled my 1992 debut novel On Bended Knees. And began a lifetime’s investigation of how the guilt and traumas of war are passed down to succeeding generations. Continue reading...