She is a shallow lightweight social butterfly, taking nothing seriously, even flirting with the idea of joining the Blackshirts. Kim Newland is an impoverished, good looking British athlete with ambitions of winning more than one gold medal at the Olympics which he hopes will make him an acceptable prospect for his girlfriend Connie's aristocratic family. In 2005, 32 year old Sigrun Meier is at Leni's home, her will granting Meier sole access to her film archives, where a short film of a unknown blonde British athlete has her embarking on a journey to find out more about him, a mission that is to have personal implications for her. She is entrusted with filming the 1936 Berlin Olympics (Olympia), where the black Jesse Owens upsets Germany's propaganda apple cart by winning 4 gold medals. Leni Riefenstahl, the innovative and sexually liberated film maker loved by Hitler and seen as the Nazis poster girl, her propaganda film, The Triumph of the Will elevated Hitler to a Wagnerian deity, a messiah for the German nation. Nigel Farndale focuses on the pre-WW2 years in Germany and England, the rise of Hitler in the 1930s and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, the Blackshirts. He now lives on the Hampshire-Sussex border with his wife Mary and their three children. He is the son of a sheep and dairy farmer from Wensleydale, and worked as a farmer there himself for a few years. His appearances on Radio 4 have included Loose Ends, Broadcasting House and Between Ourselves, a programme in which he and Lynn Barber compared notes on the art of the celebrity interview.īefore becoming a writer, Farndale read philosophy for a Master’s degree at Durham University. He writes for various newspapers and magazines, including The Observer, FT, Spectator and Country Life, and has won a British Press Award for his interviews in the Sunday Telegraph. His latest novel is The Road Between Us.Īs a journalist he has interviewed a host of celebrities and public figures from Mick Jagger, Woody Allen, the Dalai Lama and Henry Kissinger to Elton John, Prince Charles, Hillary Clinton, Paul McCartney, George Best, and Stephen Hawking. He is the author of six books, including The Blasphemer (shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award) and Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce (a biography shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize). Nigel Farndale was born in Ripon, North Yorkshire, in 1964. 'A constantly engaging and witty novel from a tremendously clever writer.' Telegraph 'Beautiful.exhilarating.' Sunday Telegraph 'A book that won't leave your fingernails intact' Daily Mail 'A great achievement.remarkable.' Melvyn Bragg But while some scenes from her life end up on the cutting room floor, this does not mean they are lost forever. Through her camera lens and memoirs, Leni is able to manipulate the truth about what happens when their fates collide at the Olympics. When he befriends Kim and Connie, his belief that the end justifies the means will be tested to the core. Alun Pryce is the Welsh communist sent to infiltrate the Blackshirts. He is driven by a desire to win an Olympic gold but to do that he must first pretend to be someone he is not. Kim Newlands is the English athlete 'sponsored' by the Blackshirts and devoted to his mercurial, socialite girlfriend Connie. She has been chosen by Hitler to capture the Olympics on celluloid but is about to find that even his closest friends have much to fear. Leni Riefenstahl is the pioneering, sexually-liberated star film-maker of the Third Reich. As Hitler's grip on power tightens, preparations are being made for the Berlin Olympics. It is the early 1930s, and Europe is holding its breath. From the bestselling author of The Blasphemer, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and a Richard & Judy Bookclub Pick
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