Catherine Chidgey was born in 1970. She has degrees in creative writing, psychology and German literature and lived in Berlin for three years. Her debut novel, In a Fishbone Church ('Warm, subtle and evocative' Louis de Bernières), won the South East Asia and Pacific Region Prize in the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Betty Trask Prize and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Golden Deeds, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, followed by The Transformation ('As beautiful as it is terrifying' Sunday Express) in 2006. Chidgey lives in Ngaruawahia, New Zealand.

'Intelligent, lyrical, disciplined and observant, she is the real deal, the star of her generation.' New Zealand Listener

'Chidgey is a gifted writer, and her confident, commanding prose and vivid atmospherics hold the attention.' Guardian

'A wonderful new talent' Nick Hornby

Germany, 1939. Sieglinde lives in the affluent ignorance of middle-class Berlin. Erich is an only child living a lush rural life, aware that he is shadowed by strange, unanswered questions. Both children watch as their parents become immersed in the puzzling mechanisms of power.

Drawn together as Germany's hope for a glorious future begins to collapse, the children find temporary refuge in an abandoned theatre amidst the rubble of Berlin. The days they spend there together will shape the rest of their lives.

Winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction