A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diary
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In the decades since her death, Anne Frank has become not just a person who once lived, breathed, and wrote but a symbol: a secret door that opens into a kaleidoscope of meanings…. Anne’s transformation into an icon has had the effect of obscuring who she really was. She becomes whoever and whatever we need her to be.
In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929–1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in hiding, now translated into more than seventy languages, is the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust.
Comprehensively researched but experimental in spirit, this book chronicles and interprets Anne’s life as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II while also telling the story of the diary—its multiple drafts, its discovery, its reception, and its message for today’s world. Writing alongside Anne rather than over her, Franklin explores the day-to-day perils of the Holocaust in the Netherlands as well as Anne’s ultimate fate, restoring her humanity and agency in all their messiness, heroism, and complexity.
With antisemitism once again in the news, The Many Lives of Anne Frank takes a fresh and timely look at the debates around Anne’s life and work, including the controversial adaptations of the diary, Anne’s evolution as a fictional character, and the ways her story and image have been politically exploited. Franklin reveals how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea, and opens up new avenues for interpreting her life and writing in today’s hyperpolarized world.
Reviews
“With comprehensive research and stunning clarity of thought, Ruth Franklin has peeled back all the layers that lie between life and art, memory and history, icon and human being. This tour de force sets the standard for anyone thinking about Anne Frank for years to come.”—Dara Horn, author of People Love Dead Jews
“This brilliant, meticulously researched, and deeply engaging portrait of Anne Frank is more than a biography—it is cultural history, investigative journalism, literary criticism, and, ultimately, a moving, clear-eyed tribute. A triumph.”—Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
“Ruth Franklin meets Anne Frank incisively on her own terms, first and foremost as a writer. She executes a difficult balancing act with subtlety, returning the diary to its context while also amplifying the voice of its author.”—Stacy Schiff, author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
“With great narrative feeling, Franklin brings to life not only Anne but the entire canvas of her life, deepening our understanding of her, her legacy, and the times she lived in. Anyone who has read the diary will be fascinated and edified by this stirring, important companion biography.”—Sheila Heti, author of Alphabetical Diaries