Nina Willner

Nina Willner
Born1961 (age 63–64)
OccupationsNonfiction author; former intelligence officer
Websitehttps://www.ninawillner.com

Nina Willner is an American nonfiction author, a former intelligence officer and human rights activist. Her first book Forty Autumns: A Family’s Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall (HarperCollins William Morrow, 2016, ISBN 0062410318) is the story of Willner's mother's escape from communist East Germany at age 20, the large family she left behind the Iron Curtain, and their four-decade journey to reunite.[1] During the Cold War, Willner led reconnaissance missions in Soviet-controlled East Berlin.[2] Willner uses her personal story to tell the broader story of the Cold War and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe.

Forty Autumns was named as one of the Top 15 Nonfiction Books of 2016 by The Christian Science Monitor,[3] and Kirkus Reviews praised it as a book that "celebrates the resilience of the human spirit". Library Journal gave it a starred review and called it "gripping".[4]

Willner's next book The Boys in the Light: An Extraordinary WWII Story of Survival, Faith and Brotherhood was published in July 2025 by Penguin Random House (Dutton), and is non-fiction about her father, Eddie Willner's, experience of the The Holocaust as a boy and being rescued and adopted by a company of young American tankers of the 3rd Armored Division.

References

  1. ^ Scharper, Diane (6 December 2017). "New memoirs trace identity, exile and exclusion in Germany, Latvia and India". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved 13 November 2025.
  2. ^ Rhodes, Giulia (8 October 2016). "Forty years of family life lost behind the iron curtain". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 November 2025.
  3. ^ The Christian Science Monitor (20 December 2016). "15 best nonfiction books of 2016". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 13 November 2025.
  4. ^ Hill, Rebecca (15 September 2016). "Forty Autumns: A Family's Story of Courage and Survival on Both Sides of the Berlin Wall". Library Journal. Retrieved 23 December 2025.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.