All the Light We Cannot See

Author : Anthony Doerr

Genre : Historical Fiction

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works as a locksmith. At age 6 she goes blind. Her father builds a miniature city for her so she can learn how to get around. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. Again, her father crafts a miniature city where Marie can learn how to walk around outside the house.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr’s stunning detail and metaphor illuminate the ways, against all odds, where people try to be good to one another.