All the Light We Cannot See: Anthony Doerr

Texta is no ordinary book club; it's for people who love art. We use fiction (mostly) to unpack the subjects, themes and emotions of art. Conversation is never colourless, and is facilitated by our brains trust from QUT Creative Industries Faculty.

To coincide with the exhibition Vis-ability: Artworks from the QUT Art Collection at QUT Art Museum, we will be discussing All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer prize for fiction and other accolades, the instant New York Times bestseller follows the lives of 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.

For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic layers within the invaluable diamond that her father guards in the Museum of Natural History. The walled city by the sea, where father and daughter take refuge when the Nazis invade Paris. And a future which draws her ever closer to Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth.

In this deeply moving novel, the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner illuminate the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

The evening commences with a brief tour of the current exhibition, followed by a glass of wine and generous amounts of conversation about the title of choice.

Texta is held through the year on Tuesday evenings from 6:15pm. Purchase this title from the QUT Bookshop or QUT Art Museum.

Download your Texta bookmark (PDF file, 137.1 KB)