In October and November 2019 it was a pleasure to do presentations and answer questions on the Bicycle Thief and the German Wife with four groups in south Dublin and Wicklow .

My thanks to Jetta and Linda in the U3A groups in Blackrock (Deansgrange) and Bray, to Gabrielle in the Dun Laoghaire Active Retirement Association and to Rosemary from the the Dalkey Women’s Group for their invitations.

If your association/group would like to include a presentation on this very moving family – and intriguing national – Italian story in your 2020 schedule, please contact me on paulmartinwriter@gmail.com.

My sincere thanks to Ass. Prof. Ursula Fanning, Ass. Prof. Eric Hayward, Melanie Pape and all in the UCD SLCL for hosting a wonderful event for “The Bicycle Thief and the German Wife” last week and to all who attended. Eric gave a very kind introduction to the book and was most engaging in his role as MC. The observations and experiences shared by Corinna Salvadori Lonergan, Professor Emerita of Italian, Trinity College Dublin, were particularly striking and memorable on this intriguing evening of discussion.

Ass. Prof. Eric Hayward (with author) in the UCD School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics.

All welcome to an event Ass. Prof. Eric Haywood and the UCD School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics are hosting for The Bicycle Thief and the German Wife. Please RSVP on http://bit.ly/MartinLaunch

I was very pleased to be invited recently to be interviewed by Tony Eames of NF Reads in the US about my books and the writing process. The interview can be read here

In my three recent launch events in Italy and Ireland, audiences showed great interest in one of The Bicycle Thief and the German Wife‘s central threads. This was Babí’s homeland of the SudTirol which became incorporated into Italy when Babí was aged 3 following WWI. The infamous option and the impact on Babi’s own family – including one brother-in-law who ended up with the German army in Stalingrad – are aspects that have generally been wiped out of Italian history.

The two books (available in English) providing good overviews of these times are:

• The South Tyrol Question, 1866-2010: from national rage to regional state by Georg Grote (who upto recently taught in UCD)
• South Tyrol: A minority conflict of the twentieth century by Rolf Steininger

Three other books (available only in Italian and German as far as I’m aware) which provide diverse perspectives are:

• Ereditá: una storia della mia famiglia tra l’impero e il fascismo by Lilli Gruber, a well known Italian journalist which recounts the story of her own German-speaking family in the region
• Eva Dorme by Francesca Melandri which although a (very readable and successful) novel really gives a great sense of the historical background and in some ways could reflect parts of Babi’s own life
• Dimenticare Mai by Franz Thaler which recalls the personal experience of a German-speaker whose family rejected the option, refusing to leave their native land to move to the Reich in 1940. Thaler came out of hiding from the Germans when his parents and siblings were threatened with imprisonment in the local Bolzano concentration camp. This brought Thaler to Dachau where only due to his youthful strength did he survive upto liberation. “Dimenticare Mai” means “never forget”.

What a great Irish launch last night for The Bicycle Thief and the German Wife!

Thanks to all in Dalkey Library during a very busy Dalkey Book Festival week. Gerry Mullins was our great MC on the evening to a packed house. But mostly, can I say a huge thanks to all who attended. Enjoy your new summer reading and pass on the word www.paulmartinwriter.com/where-to-buy/