VICKY'S COMMENT
I have just received and am enjoying reading 'I Am My Own Wife' by Charlotte von Mahlsdorf. I heard of the story from a friend who saw the dramatisation of the book on Broadway. The book gives so much more detail than a play ever can.
I was born in the 50s and did my growing up in the leafy London suburbs in the 60s and I knew what I was, though I had no language to express it. I knew what I thought and what I liked to do was considered unsuitable for a boy, but I risked nothing more than a playground fight, a lounge lashing and a smack on the leg.
I have often written that it was like keeping a beach ball submerged throughout these years and eventually I found the courage to let go.
So to read of Charlottes experiencing the same thoughts and longing to express herself amidst a war torn germany of the 40s is extraordinary. Despite the immense risk she frequently let the ball appear bobbing above the surface.
To me this story proves the strength of the transgender 'gene' that some of us live with. When others suggest we choose to think the way we do. We need to know about those who were born into a time and place where they would never choose risking discovery and brutal death yet still the 'gene' forces its way to the surface.
This book tells the life story of an effeminate male, who expressed himself in a similar ways to Quentin Crisp. However unlike the still intolerant 60s London, Charlotte was living a surreal and extremely dangerous life as a relatively public transvestite amidst homosexuals and jews all of whom were risking the gas chambers at the hands of the Nazis and later rape or death at the hands of the victorious Russian soldiers.
Charlotte von Mahlsdorf survived both the Nazis and the Communists. This is her exquisitely written biography where she reveals her lifelong pursuit of gender expression and sexual liberty.
BOOK CONTENTS
A soft-spoken transvestite wanting nothing more than to live as a hausfrau, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf instead was caught uo in the most harrowing dramas of 20th century Europe, surviving both the Nazis and the Communists. This is her exquisitely written biography where she reveals her lifelong pursuit of sexual liberty. With the success of a new play about Charlotte, hailed by The New York Times as the most stirring new work to appear on Broadway this fall, her story is reaching an entirely new readership of enthusiastic theatre fans.
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