Small Acts of Defiance: A Novel of WWII and Paris
"In Small Acts of Defiance, Michelle Wright paints a beautifully intimate portrait that celebrates the courage and resilience of the human spirit."-- Jane Harper, author of The Survivors
A stunning debut WWII novel from award-winning short story writer Michelle Wright, about the small but courageous acts a young woman performs against the growing anti-Jewish measures in Nazi-occupied Paris.
"Doing nothing is still a choice. A choice to stand aside and let it happen."
January 1940: After a devastating tragedy, young Australian woman Lucie and her mother Yvonne are forced to leave home and flee to France. There they seek help from the only family they have left, Lucie's uncle, Gérard.
As the Second World War engulfs Europe, the two women find themselves trapped in German-occupied Paris, sharing a cramped apartment with the authoritarian Gérard and his extremist views. Drawing upon her artistic talents, Lucie risks her own safety to engage in small acts of defiance against the occupying Nazi forces and the collaborationist French regime - illustrating pro-resistance tracts and forging identity cards.
Faced with the escalating brutality of anti-Jewish measures, and the indifference of so many of her fellow Parisians, Lucie must decide how far she will go to protect her friends and defend the rights of others before it's too late.
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"In Small Acts of Defiance, Michelle Wright paints a beautifully intimate portrait that celebrates the courage and resilience of the human spirit." -- Jane Harper, author of The Survivors
"Michelle Wright has deftly combined a sweeping history of a city under occupation with the tiniest details of family life and the tenderness of friendship. Small Acts of Defiance asks questions from the last century that we're having to ask all over again: when is it no longer possible to look away?" -- Jock Serong, author of The Burning Island
"Small Acts of Defiance is a gripping, meticulously researched novel, and a nuanced, poetic and deeply serious exploration of the difference that individual choices can make in a society crumbling physically and morally. Wright recreates occupied Paris with immediacy and with melancholy tenderness, and asks questions about personal responsibility that are just as relevant today as they were eighty years ago. This is a book to savour and treasure." -- Lee Kofman, author of Imperfect
"A powerful and elegantly wrought story of women's resistance. This is required reading for our times." -- Myfanwy Jones, author of Leap
"Small Acts of Defiance is an evocative, deeply moving evocation of war-torn 1940's Paris. It's a brave, beautifully written novel about what it means to be human in the face of brutality, and why it matters. Put simply, it's magnificent." -- Laurie Steed, author of You Belong Here
"Small Acts of Defiance is a story that attains the rare, elusive jewel of flawlessness. An engrossing, deeply-satisfying read, one of 2021's outstanding, not-to-be missed debuts." -- Melissa Ashley, author of The Bee and the Orange Tree
"A powerful and nuanced book, so evocative of place and time while being timeless. I found it thoroughly absorbing; the characters felt authentic, and the details of Paris in the forties and under occupation fascinating. In these stories of war, in particular those which touch on the atrocity of genocide, it's easy to simply pile on the horror. Wright offers a more human, honest version without diminishing the importance of the Holocaust which is intrinsic to the time, place and characters. A truly fine novel." -- Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project
