Literature about WW2

by Nickii Wantakan Arcado

With the recent conclusion of the 2019 Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, California, it was a given that we would want to suggest novels that are about or have been inspired by events during World War II. We hope the list below piques your interests just as it did ours.

All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
A personal favorite of mine, All the Light You Cannot See is the story about a blind, female heroine named Marie-Laure and orphan, Werner Pfennig, and how their lives cross paths during the final days of the war. Uniquely written in two perspectives, the title of the novel is also a double entendre; the light that our female heroine cannot physically see as well as the motif of radio waves prominent throughout the novel.

Catch-22 by Joseph Keller
Known as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, Catch-22 is a satirical (somewhat black comedy) novel on Captain John Yossarian, an American bombardier whose growing paranoia causes him both the war as a personal attack against him. The novel is told from a non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, jumping back and forth between various timelines yet closely following John’s attempts at escaping from his military missions. The title has been memorialized as a logical paradox in which an individual, regardless of their choices, are unable to escape due to contradictory rules and/or limitations in their situation.

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The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
The Rape of Nanking is the true story of the horrors of December 1937: The day the Japanese Imperial Army invaded the city of Nanjing and systematically tortured, raped and massacred more than 300,o00 Chinese civilians. Author Iris Chang frames the novel in three distinctive perspectives; the Japanese soldiers who engaged in the acts, the Chinese civilians who endured and fought for survival, and the Europeans and Americans soldiers who sought to take back the city. The novel consists of interviews and previously unpublished Chinese narratives, reminding readers of the forgotten holocaust that some government officials and educational institutions wish to deny.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
Set during post World War II London, Juliet Ashton goes on an adventure to the island of Guernsey, where she finds the next subject of her new book-- a native man from the island along with the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. As the story progresses, Juliet not only begins learning about the impact the German occupation had on the island and its inhabitants but learns more about herself as a writer during the process.

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Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
One of the weirdest books on the list if I do say so myself, Slaughterhouse-Five is packed with everything from bombings to aliens. The novel is centered around Billy Pilgrim, whose abduction by aliens plunges him through an odyssey of time to relive his past memories as a serviceman during the war. Chosen as one of the 100 best novels of all time by the Modern Library, the novel is undoubtedly anti-war, utilizing the infamous Dresden firebombing as its backdrop as well as serving as a metaphor for Vonnegut’s own experience as a prisoner of war.

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Small Island by Andrea Levy
Gilbert Joseph returns to London, hoping that his five-year service in the British Air Force would help expand his economic opportunities and career paths and serve as a welcoming home for his newlywed wife Hortense Joseph. Despite his military achievements and his sacrifices, Gilbert is met with reality living as a Jamaican, black man in 1940s London; xenophobia, prejudice, and racial discrimination.

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
September 8, 1943. 14-year-old Claudette Blum, her father, and thousands of other Jewish refugees march towards the Alps towards Italy hoping to find safety with the news that the Italians have broken with the Germans. But Claudette soon realized that while by day, the country offers the hope for solace, by night, Italy becomes battleground fought between Nazis, Allies, resistance fighters, and everyone in between fighting for survival. 

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The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
Told from the perspective of ‘Death’ (known as the story’s collector of souls) Liesel Meminger’s life turns upside down when she meets and befriends Max Vandenburg, a Jew who her foster parents have hidden in their basement since the onslaught of the Nazi regime. As she begins stealing books that the Nazis sought to destroy, Liesel not only begins to learn how to read but begins writing her narrative as a child caught between her innocence and her growing understanding and maturity of the realities of war.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
When Bruno’s father is promoted to Commandant by the Nazi Regime, Bruno packs up his belongings and relocates to a faraway place with no kids and tall fence separating him from “the other side”. While exploring his new environment, Bruno meets a boy with striped pajamas Shmuel (who, unbeknownst to Bruno, is actually a concentration camp inmate). From there on, an unlikely, and forbidden friendship begin to blossom between the two boys whose background couldn’t be more different. This novel, as well as it’s 2008 movie adaptation will undoubtedly have you in tears, both with Bruno and Shmuel’s life circumstances and the detriments that war has on innocent minds.

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