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.

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