BOOKS
A Woman Named Edith
A Jewish-Austrian exile in 1930s London, Edith Tudor Hart was a talented professional photographer, anti-fascist activist – and Soviet secret agent.
A Woman Named Edith is the first full biography in English of this elusive figure, tracing her life from her early years in the socialist intellectual circles of Vienna, through her training at the Bauhaus, to her work as a Soviet agent in Britain.
Tudor Hart was a deeply committed communist, and she used her striking photography to highlight the urban deprivation and inequality she witnessed. She also played a vital role in the Cambridge spy
network and was responsible for recruiting Kim Philby. But despite being kept under observation by the British Secret Service for decades, she was never caught and never confessed.
The story in this book portrays a woman of remarkable energy, determination and creativity.
The Exiles
London, 1934. Austrian actress Elisabeth
Bergner dominated the British theatre scene;
poet and director Berthold Viertel shot two
successful films for Gaumont British; two
great actors from the Weimar era, Conrad
Veidt and Fritz Kortner, became well-known
faces in English-speaking cinema; the
Hungarian journalist Stefan Lorant launched
the first ever continental-style illustrated
magazine for the British newspaper market,
and the Warburg Institute opened its doors.
Exploring a phase in the history of Anglo-
German relations during which the émigrés
from Hitler’s Germany were making their
influence felt in Britain, Daria Santini traces
their life and work in London from around
1933 to 1935 when these characters made
their presence truly felt, all while the Nazi
threat loomed on the horizon.
