Character: Werner Pfennig
Book: All the Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
26 writer: Carmen Lavin
In a German mining-town in 1934, Werner is riveted by stories he hears on a radio. Later, in Brittany, war almost over, he meets blind Marie-Laure.
Earliest memories? The mesmerising stories
that filled my mind, from airwaves
in the orphanage attic,
living in the coal-dust
which had squeezed the breath out of my father’s life in pit nine.
A last battle by seething sea waves
brought me through an alleyway of chance to
the granddaughter of the man who told the stories.
Her blind touch opened
unspeaking consolation.