 Unity - Michael Arditti
**Shortlisted for the 2006 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize**
Michael Arditti's first novel since the award-winning Easter examines
the personalities and politics involved in the making of a film about
the relationship between Unity Mitford and Hitler, set against the
background of the Red Army Faction terror campaign in 1970s Germany.
Almost thirty years after the film had to be abandoned following its
leading actress's participation in a terrorist attack, the narrator
sets out to uncover her true motives by exploring her relationships
with her aristocratic English family, the German wunderkind film director,
a charismatic Palestinian activist, her university boyfriend, a former
Hollywood child star and an Auschwitz survivor turned high-powered pornographer.
Unity paints a deeply disturbing picture of corruption and fanaticism in both
Britain and Germany from the 1930s to the present day. Startlingly original
in concept and treatment, this remarkable novel is a profound and provocative
exploration of the nature of evil.
'A wonderful novel, written with exceptional knowledge and understanding
of past and present Germany' - Gitta Sereny
'Farce and intensity blend in a deftly layered version of Hitler's legacy... Michael Arditti ambitiously tackles the theme of human evil in the history of Europe over the past seventy years.
He does so with a touch both curiously light and unambiguously earnest' - Melissa Benn, The Guardian
'Strikingly original in form... a remarkable, unsettling book... a compelling fiction' - Jane Shilling, The Times
'What is astonishing in Unity is the grim wit and ironic humour which pervades this serious page-turner... the reader staggers away from this
uncompromising drama of ideas shaken and stirred' - Patricia Duncker, Independent
'Highly intelligent... well worth reading' - Adam Lively, Sunday Times
About the Author
Michael Arditti was born in Cheshire and lives in London. He is the author
of three highly acclaimed novels, The Celibate, Pagan and her Parents, and Easter,
and a collection of short stories, Good Clean Fun (Maia, 2004).
Publication date for Unity: 9th June 2005
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