J'ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir
Christine Arnothy, is the author of a war journal written when she was 15 in a Budapest basement trapped between the Russian and the German armies in 1944-45. She declares "I was born without roots. I am a Central European mixed up, the result of five ethnics crossing with one another. My father was from the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy, my mother from a high Jewish Polish society and my grand father from Germany. The social situation of my family placed me under the pressure of historical resentments. I learned French from my mother as my first language. Since the age of nine my only interest in life is writing.J'ai quinze ans et je ne veux pas mourir is the integral text written in the basement with a candlelight. Thirty-three other novels were to follow, telling stories between Los Angles and Nairobi, two key cities in my life. I chose France as my native land. I gave up America for the love of a French man. Writing is my blood, in my vein it is a French blood running."
