Anthony Doerr is author of the New York Times bestseller “All the Light We Cannot See,” about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Doerr says the novel is about the magic of radio, propaganda, a cursed diamond, children in Nazi Germany, puzzles, snails, the Natural History Museum in Paris, courage, fear, bombs, the magical seaside town of Saint-Malo in France, and the ways in which people, against all odds, try to be kind to one another. And he says, referring to the book’s title, that there are countless invisible stories still buried within World War II — that stories of ordinary children, for example, are a kind of light we do not typically see. And that, ultimately, the title is intended as a suggestion that we spend too much time focused on only a small slice of the spectrum of possibility.
Anthony Doerr is coming to Utah for several events in the Utah Humanities Council Book Festival: He’ll give a talk on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. in USU Family Life 206, called "Writing and the Natural World," and will read from his novel on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. in USU Library 101. These events in Logan are part of the USU English Department Speaker Series. On Thursday, at 7:00 p.m. he’ll read from and sign “All the Light We Cannot See” at the Viridian Library, 8030 South 1825 West, West Jordan, in an event for The King’s English Bookshop.