-
Access Our
Most Anticipated
Books of 2025!
Rosella Postorino is an internationally bestselling author and an editor. She speaks fluent English, Italian, French, and German. At the Wolf's Table is her first novel to be translated into English. It is translated by Leah Janeczko.
This bio was last updated on 08/28/2018. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
Tell us about the inspiration for At the Wolf's Table.
In September 2014, while reading an Italian newspaper, I found a brief article about Margot Wölk, Hitler's last living food taster. She was 96 years old and it was the first time she had confessed her experience; she had kept it a secret her whole life. In the interview, she said she had never been a Nazi, but had been forced by the SS to become a food taster because she had moved to her parents-in-law's house when a bomb destroyed her apartment in Berlin, where she was born. Her husband was fighting on the Russian front, and her in-laws lived in a country village very close to the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's headquarters hidden in the forest.
Wölk and other young women were recruited to taste Hitler's food and check whether it was poisoned. She described the tasters' meals as very distressing moments, as a real nightmare, but she also remembered how delicious and fresh the food was. I felt that this contradiction represented the contradiction of her role: she was a victim being forced to risk life and limb three times a day just by eating, but she was also guilty, because she was working for Hitler, an inhuman, evil person. That's why I was struck by her story and ...
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
