The Many Lives of Anne Frank, Ruth Franklin
The Many Lives of Anne Frank, Ruth Franklin
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The Many Lives of Anne Frank

Author: Ruth Franklin

Narrator: Erin Bennett

Unabridged: 12 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/27/2025

Synopsis

A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diaryIn this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929–1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in hiding, now translated into more than seventy languages, is the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust.Comprehensively researched but experimental in spirit, this book chronicles and interprets Anne’s life as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II while also telling the story of the diary—its multiple drafts, its discovery, its reception, and its message for today’s world. Writing alongside Anne rather than over her, Franklin explores the day-to-day perils of the Holocaust in the Netherlands as well as Anne’s ultimate fate, restoring her humanity and agency in all their messiness, heroism, and complexity.With antisemitism once again in the news, The Many Lives of Anne Frank takes a fresh and timely look at the debates around Anne’s life and work, including the controversial adaptations of the diary, Anne’s evolution as a fictional character, and the ways her story and image have been politically exploited. Franklin reveals how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea, and opens up new avenues for interpreting her life and writing in today’s hyperpolarized world.

About Ruth Franklin

Ruth Franklin is the author of A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction, a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography.

About Erin Bennett

Erin Bennett is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a stage actress who played Carlie Roberts in the BBC radio drama Torchwood: Submission. She can be heard on several video games. Regional theater appearances include the Intiman, Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Laguna Playhouse, and the Getty Villa. She trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Michelle on March 28, 2025

I’ve studied much of WWII, the Holocaust and The Frank family. I was pleasantly surprised to learn a few things about Anne Frank that I had never heard or read before. This book was well written and honored the life of Anne Frank and the legacy she left behind. A must read. We learn from history and......more

Goodreads review by Lauren on March 01, 2025

3.5 Stars - The first part of this book, the biography, was quite interesting, but Part 2 went off on a lot of tangents that detracted from the book. I was hoping to get more of Otto, her father, in this section but alas. Feels like the author lost steam by the end......more

Goodreads review by Chris on July 09, 2025

While this book was insightful and thoughtful, I thought the section on Gaza was insensitive and not well thought out. The author continually has a problem with people using the word genocide to describe suffering, but she seems to not know the definition of genocide because what happened in South A......more

Goodreads review by Robbie on February 24, 2025

Ruth Franklin’s biography, The Many Lives of Anne Frank, explores questions that arose for me during the years that I used the play and the diary in my 8th grade classroom. Early on, I noticed discrepancies between the stage adaptation and the diary. These opened a window into the needs of playwrigh......more

Goodreads review by Zoe on May 27, 2025

Would round up to 4.5 stars. I really enjoyed this biography of Anne Frank! Anne's life was told in a nice, succinct manner and even though Anne did not live very long, so there is not that much to know, I learned a lot about her life and her friends from before and during the war. I also learned ab......more

Quotes

“Narrator Erin Bennett approaches the text with profound respect for Anne and her memory…Bennett smoothly weaves the narrative, whose expressive range is remarkable in both depth and breadth…A memorable performance with just the right tone and feeling. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile

“A vivid cultural history that advocates for a reevaluation of Frank, not as a symbol or a saint but as a human being and a literary artist.” New Yorker

“Quite moving are the ‘interludes’ testifying to the diary’s impact on individual readers across the globe. A final chapter, ‘Anne in the Political World’…speculating on how Anne might have viewed these issues if she had survived.” Kirkus Reviews

“The biography succeeds in ‘restoring as a human being rather than an icon,’ and Franklin’s probing examination of the eventful afterlife of Frank’s diary testifies to how the lessons of the Holocaust continue to be litigated. This is an essential look at the diarist’s legacy.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Awards

  • AudioFile Earphones Award
  • New Yorker Magazine Pick
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