Makeshift

A fascinating and long-forgotten novel about the experiences of a German Jewish woman from the end of the First World War to the mid-1930s, her growing awareness of the rise of Nazism and her search for a home as a refugee. The story of the struggle to establish an identity in an unstable and intolerant world, told in an unforgettable voice.

Makeshift traces the story of Charlotte Herz, a German Jewish woman, from the end of the First World War and the time of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism. Campion details Charlotte’s struggle to establish her identity in the midst of increasing anti-Semitism and violence against Jews. Finally, driven into exile, she roams from England to South Africa and Australia before settling, uneasily, in New Zealand. Charlotte’s stubborn, irrascible outlook makes her a caustic and often bitingly funny observer and her unique voice becomes an irresistable narrative voice. A unique account of the experience of exile that makes for an unforgettable novel.

Author Biography

Born the daughter of a Cambridge don in 1906, Sarah Campion taught in Germany from 1933 to 1937, when she was expelled for refusing to collaborate with Nazi authorities. This and her encounters with apartheid in South Africa instilled in her a lifelong dedication to political activism. She spent a year in Australia, in which she set her most famous novel, Mo Burdekin, then returned to England at the start of World War Two. She published 11 novels between 1936 and 1951. She eventually settled in New Zealand, where she worked as a journalist and organizer in social movements. She died in 2002.