What did it feel like to live in and serve Nazi Germany then be torn away from everything you knew only to be finally dumped back into the new world of Communist East Germany? Or was it new? Through the turbulent times of Franz Schmidt, feel how terror and disillusionment morphs into Boa constrictor, Gestapo into Stasi, trust into deceit. Only one constant theme gives him hope. "Escape from Babylon is an astonishingly well written first novel. A cross between Jeffrey Archer and Ian McEwan, it is an emotional roller coaster set against the uncertainties of post-war Europe. The main characters are sympathetic, and the baddies horrible." Sarah Challis 11 time best-selling novelist I am from former East Germany and live in Canada. This book is fantastic...it's our past and the story feels so real. Loved to read it!" Gabrielle Pahnke, Kindle purchaser.
About the Author: I am English but have lived in East Germany for 17 years. Here I have met and listened to many WW2 veterans as well as practically every day hearing something from my acquaintances, friends and family about life in the DDR. It struck me that these WW2 and DDR generations are getting older and starting to die and as they do so their stories, memories and emotions of their times will die with them. Soon it will all only be cold facts in a history book. What a terrible shame. I decided that these emotions, the feelings of the ordinary people who were subjected to these systems should not be lost with them. That others should understand what it was like should be recorded and could best be told, not as a history book, but as a novel. A novel that is naturally full of accurate facts but a novel that gives the reader the knowledge and the pleasure of that knowledge in knowing the attitudes, social and physical constraints, hopes and fears of these real life generations before they disappear. So I wrote Escape from Babylon! Me? I was born in London, where my father was a policeman, but lived most of my youth in a small village, Dinton, near Salisbury. I remember Dinton fondly as a village that still had a two room village school, a smithy under a chestnut tree and a village lake where we young boys spent hours fishing. I went to Gillingham school in North Dorset, a happy time where I became a nationally ranked Long Jumper, before studying Physical Education at the then Cardiff College of Education, now part of Cardiff University. I taught P.E. in three different South Wales schools and whilst teaching I was privileged to become coach to Llanharan RFC, a very enjoyable and successful four years. I got bored with teaching and left after seven years to open a sports shop with my wife and later, an import export business. I continued to work in the sports business with a major sporting goods manufacturer and later as a management and marketing consultant to many firms throughout the UK, never-the-less I still found time to stand as a European Parliamentary Candidate in the 1994 election in South East Wales; I had some great experiences. Towards the end of this time my first marriage dissolved and I met my present partner, Siegrun, who lives in East Germany and the rest is history. I now teach English to companies, organise tours to the UK and indulge myself with golf and by writing. For more information, go to www.Escape-From-Babylon.com