How was Anne Frank’s life before the Dutch Jewish teenager began writing her diary under Nazi occupation? New novel to explore the subject

A novel by Alice Hoffman to be released in September will look at how the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II shaped The Diary of Anne Frank

Backed by Amsterdam’s Anne Frank House, the author wrote the novel to remind readers how ‘state-sponsored discrimination turns ordinary people into monsters’

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Anne Frank went into hiding in Amsterdam during the World War II Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Alice Hoffman’s upcoming novel looks at the Dutch Jewish teenager’s life before she began writing her famous diary. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:15pm, 7 Jan 2024

A novel based on Dutch Jewish teenager Anne Frank’s life immediately before she began keeping a second world war diary will be released later this year, with the cooperation of Amsterdam-based museum the Anne Frank House.

When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary, written by bestselling author Alice Hoffman, is scheduled for publication by Scholastic on September 17.

The project was initiated by Lisa Sandell and Miriam Farbey, editors for publisher Scholastic, who thought Hoffman ideal for telling the story.

Hoffman is known for Practical Magic and other fictional works about sorcery, and has also written books for young people, and The World That We Knew, a novel about the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews during the second world war.

Anne Frank’s room where she hid during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Photo: Anne Frank House

“In the year when I was 12, I discovered many of the books that have meant the most to me, books that changed my life,” Hoffman said in a statement issued by Scholastic.