Why read Saints and Villains?

Book cover of Saints and Villains

Book description

What is the price of acting morally in a time of great evil, when sin and necessity seem twinned? Saints and Villains is a strikingly resonant novel that dramatizes this painful dilemma through the fictional re-creation of the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This emblematic figure risked his life--and finally lost…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Saints and Villains as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Evie Yoder Miller

Author

The historical figure, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is a striking exemplar of courage in response to the atrocities of World War II. Denise Giardina’s historical fiction book, Saints and Villains, portrays the interplay of Bonhoeffer’s moral values as a Nazi resister and as a German theologian. Factually, Bonhoeffer could have fled from the horrors of war, but he chose not to do so and ended up involved in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler. I don’t think of Bonhoeffer’s characterization as a model of virtue, but I rooted for his ordinariness, his questions, and doubts that made him morally complex. My…

From Evie's list on The best books that show how common citizens face the intertwinings of war, conscience, and religion.