Good Reading Podcast

Shelley Davidow on love in Berlin and the creative urge in 'The Girl With the Violin'


Listen Later

It's 1989 and for a young Jewish-Australian violinist, a scholarship to Berlin is the chance of a lifetime. Germany is on the verge of change as the wall is torn down, and Susanna is swept along by the tumultuous event. Under the careful guidance of Stefan Heinemeyer, her renowned violin teacher and the grandson of a Nazi, she begins a composition in memory of her grandmother, Mirla, who died in the Buchenwald concentration camp during the Second World War, and Susanna is inspired to retrace Mirla's final footsteps.

It's a journey that reconnects Susanna to her heritage and propels her musical gift to extraordinary heights. Yet as a forbidden yearning for Stefan begins to unfurl, Susanna's life is forever changed, and the repercussions will echo through decades and across continents.
In a world where history, society and inherited traumas threaten to silence Susanna and prevent her from ever becoming her true self, can she find the courage to reclaim her power as a woman, a musician, and a composer, and in so doing, lay her haunted past to rest?

In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Shelley Davidow about her own experience of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the consequences of love and history across time and generations, and the Berlin of today, decades after that dramatic moment in 1989.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Good Reading PodcastBy Good Reading Magazine


More shows like Good Reading Podcast

View all
Fresh Air by NPR

Fresh Air

38,475 Listeners

The New Yorker: Fiction by The New Yorker

The New Yorker: Fiction

3,358 Listeners

No Filter by Mamamia Podcasts

No Filter

578 Listeners

The Bookshelf by ABC

The Bookshelf

40 Listeners

Stories Behind the Story with Better Reading by Better Reading Podcast

Stories Behind the Story with Better Reading

12 Listeners

The Book Show by ABC

The Book Show

19 Listeners

True Crime Conversations by Mamamia Podcasts

True Crime Conversations

521 Listeners

Extra Healthy-ish by BODY + Soul

Extra Healthy-ish

7 Listeners

Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley by BBC Radio 4

Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley

189 Listeners

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart by Comedy Central

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

10,682 Listeners

The Rest Is Politics by Goalhanger

The Rest Is Politics

2,841 Listeners

The Interview by The New York Times

The Interview

1,580 Listeners