Edge Rewrite
everything Source code View original
// HTMLRewriter · presentation

This page was redesigned at the edge.

Cloudflare fetched the original article and streamed it through HTMLRewriter to apply an entirely new visual system without rebuilding the source page.

// request.cf · coarse context

A page that knows where it met you.

Only coarse request metadata is shown. This demo does not display or persist visitor IP addresses.

Country
US
Cloudflare location
CMH
Connection
HTTP/2
Language
Not provided

Ray ID: a2386163dd418020

Jump to content

Anna Funder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anna Funder
Anna Funder, Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, 2012
Anna Funder, Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, 2012
Born1966 (age 59–60)
Melbourne, Australia
OccupationWriter
EducationBA (Hons), LLB (Hons), MA (University of Melbourne)
DAAD scholarship (Free University of Berlin)
Doctor of Creative Arts (University of Technology Sydney)
Years active2002—
Notable worksStasiland (2003), All That I Am (2011), Wifedom (2023)
Notable awardsMiles Franklin Award 2012, Samuel Johnson Prize 2004
PartnerCraig Allchin
ParentsKate Funder, John Funder
Website
www.annafunder.com

Anna Funder (born 1966) is an Australian author. She is best known for her award-winning novels Stasiland (2003), her 2012 novel All That I Am (winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award), and Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life (2023), as well as her human rights advocacy. She has toured extensively talking about her writing as well as human rights issues, giving addresses at named lecture series. In April 2026 she was appointed Professor of Practice in Creative Writing at the University of Sydney

Early life and education

[edit source]

Anna Funder was born in Melbourne, Australia,[1] in 1966,[2] the daughter of John Funder AC, an endocrinologist, and Dr Kate Funder, a psychologist.[3][1] Her brother, Joshua, a Rhodes scholar, has written wrote a book about the evacuation of Gallipoli through the eyes of their great-grandfather, Stan Watson, an engineer from Adelaide who was responsible for building the pier at Anzac Cove.[4] She also has another brother, Hugh.[3]

Funder was spent her early childhood in San Francisco and Paris, France.[1] She graduated dux of Star of the Sea College in Brighton, Victoria, in 1983.[5]

As an undergraduate of the University of Melbourne, where she studied English literature, German, and law, she was awarded a DAAD scholarship,[6] enabling her to attend the Free University of Berlin in West Berlin in 1987, before the fall of the Berlin Wall.[7] She left Berlin in 1988.[8] Funder holds a BA in English literature, German and law; an LLB (Hons);[1] and an MA in creative writing from the University of Melbourne.[9]

In 2006 she started researching and writing her second novel, All That I Am, when she was undertaking the creative component of her work to earn a Doctor of Creative Arts from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).[10]

Career

[edit source]
[edit source]

Funder began her career as an international lawyer for the Australian Government, in the Attorney-General's Department in the Office of International Law. She worked on Section 52 of the Constitution, on human rights, and on constitutional law; and for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on international treaty negotiations. Other activities included a focus on the rights of a child and environmental protections.[11]

Funder ended her career in law when she moved from Australia to live in Berlin and write full-time in the late 1990s.[1][12] She has said that she had always wanted to be a writer, but her training in law had equipped her well for situations she later found herself in.[8]

Journalism

[edit source]

Funder's essays, feature articles and columns have appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Paris Review, Best Australian Essays, Die Zeit,[citation needed] and The Monthly.[13] 

Anna wrote a column for the Norwegian publication Ny Tid, alternating with Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya up until Politkovskaya’s assassination in 2006. Funder's feature essay "Secret History"[14] on the Nazi files held in the Arolsen Archives (Bad Arolsen), published in the Good Weekend and The Guardian was awarded the ASA Maunder Award for Journalism in 2007.[15][16]

Fiction

[edit source]

Stasiland

[edit source]

Funder's 2003 Stasiland tells true stories of people who resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for its secret police, the Stasi. In 2020 Maurice Frank, of the Berliner Zeitung wrote "Anna Funder's Stasiland has become a classic of the literature on Communist East Germany. Thirty years after reunification, the book could serve as a warning for now".[17] In the New York Times, William Gibson, called it ‘superb’[18]; Tom Hanks called it ‘fascinating, entertaining, hilarious, horrifying and very important’;[19] the London Review of Books called it ‘meticulous and compassionate. . . a heroic act of listening.’[20]

Stasiland has been translated into 25 languages and honoured with publication by the Folio Society.[21] It won the 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize (now Baillie Gifford Prize) for best non-fiction published in the English language,[22] and was also the finalist for the Age Book of the Year Awards, Guardian First Book Award, Queensland Premier's Literary Award, Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature (Innovation in Writing), Index Freedom of Expression Awards, and the W.H. Heinemann Award.[23]

All That I Am

[edit source]

Funder's 2012 novel All That I Am reveals the unknown story of one of the earliest acts of Jewish resistance to Hitler. It tells the previously untold story of four German-Jewish anti-Hitler activists forced to flee Berlin for London. There, they continued the dangerous and illegal work of smuggling documents out of Goering's office, and giving them to Winston Churchill (a backbencher at the time) to try to alert the world to Hitler's plans for war.[24] Although based on a true story, Funder allowed herself more artistic licence to dramatise it, as the people involved were dead.[8]

The book was very well received by critics, including the Times Literary Supplement),[25] and The Wall Street Journal.[26] It won Australia's most prestigious fiction prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award.[27] Published in 25 countries, the novel was BBC Book of the Week and Book at Bedtime in the UK, and The Times (London) Book of the Month for May 2012.[28]

The Girl with the Dogs

[edit source]

In July 2015 Funder published a novella titled The Girl with the Dogs.[29]

Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life

[edit source]

Her 2023 book Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life is a fictionalised biography of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy.[8] In it, Funder shows how Orwell and his biographers minimised or eliminated her contributions her husband's work and life, as well as that of other women, including his mother and aunt.[30][31][32] The novel was an instant Sunday Times Bestseller on release in August 2023[33] and it was awarded France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger 2024.[34] Kirkus Reviews hailed it as "electrifying" and "a spellbinding achievement".[35] It was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2023[36] and named a Book of the Year by The Guardian,[37] The Independent,[38] The Economist,[39] LitHub,[40] the The Daily Telegraph,[41] The Financial Times,[42] and The Times.[43] There was, however, a negative reaction from members of The Orwell Society, which includes the couple's adopted son Richard Blair, who thought that her representation of Orwell was unfair. Funder said that she had published facts that had been deliberately hidden, including "his repressed homosexuality, his sadism, his paranoia, his infidelities, his complexity out of which the work comes".[8]  

Academia

[edit source]

In 2022, Funder was a part-time staff member in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS. With emeritus professor Roy Green, she was co-founder and then co-administrator of the vice-chancellor's Democracy Forum, which examines the impact of global politics, AI and other technology, and culture on democracy around the world. She established the university's international speaker series.[44][9]

Other activities

[edit source]

Human rights advocacy

[edit source]

An advocate for free speech and privacy, Funder has worked with a number of human rights organisations.[11] She has been an ambassador for the Norwegian-based International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN),[45] a global network of cities offering safe havens for persecuted writers.[1]

As of July 2026 she is a member of the Advisory Panel of the Australian Privacy Foundation.[46]

[edit source]

Funder has been outspoken about AI's illegal copyright theft of material, especially writers' works, including her own. In 2025, together with Julia Powles, Funder published on AI's global misuse of copyright material.[47] She appeared with Tom Keneally and Sally Rippin before a Senate Committee hearing on AI companies' "training" of AI computer programs involving the theft of copyright material.[48][49] Her appearance went viral, garnering nearly half a million views.

Memberships and boards

[edit source]

As of 2020 Funder was a board member of the University of Melbourne Foundation, and she is an honorary fellow of the UTS.[11]

Funder has been a member of the Folio Prize Academy and PEN International, both its Australian and US chapters. In 2007 she delivered a lecture as part of Sydney PEN Voices: The 3 Writers Project. In it, she explored ways of thinking about extraordinary human courage such as that of Anna Politkovskaya, the Putin critic and journalist assassinated in 2006.[50] The book Courage, Survival, Greed was published in May 2009 as part of the project, containing essays by her along with Melissa Lucashenko and Christopher Kremmer, focused on "explor[ing] issues facing contemporary Australia".[51]

Public appearances and lectures

[edit source]

Funder has spoken at festivals and events, including literary festivals at Edinburgh, Hay-on-Wye, Jaipur, Cheltenham and writers' festivals in Australia. She was selected by the Jewish Book Council to tour the US with All That I Am, and has toured her books around the world.[52] A contributor to radio, TV and podcasts, Funder has interviewed people. In 2025 she hosted Is it Fascism Yet? with Masha Gessen and Jason Stanley at the Sydney Opera House.[53]

She has delivered commencement addresses at universities and given named lectures, including the University of Iceland in Reykjavik.[54] Other lectures and addresses include:

Awards and recognition

[edit source]

Aside from many awards nominated or won for her three novels mentioned in the articles covering those books, Funder has been the recipient of other awards and recognition, including:

Personal life

[edit source]

Funder lived with her husband, urban designer Craig Allchin, and three children in Brooklyn, New York for three and a half years during the Obama presidency, before returning to Australia in 2015.[70][71][8]

Funder speaks French and German fluently.[72]

Bibliography

[edit source]
  • Stasiland: Stories from behind the Berlin Wall. London: Granta. 2003. ISBN 978-1-86207-655-6. OCLC 55891480.
  • All That I Am. London: Penguin. 2011. ISBN 978-1-926428-33-8.
  • The Girl with the Dogs. Australia: Penguin. 2015. ISBN 978-0-14357-350-0.
  • Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life. Hamish Hamilton. 2023. ISBN 9780143787112.

References

[edit source]
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Anna Funder". Claxton Speakers. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  2. ↑ "Anna Funder (1966-)". Trove. Retrieved 27 July 2026.
  3. 1 2 Morrow, Nathan (11 April 2026). "John Funder". Australian Book Review. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  4. ↑ Weaver, Chris. "Commemorating a vital part of the Anzac story". ANZAC. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  5. ↑ "Dux of the College". Starmelb.catholic.edu.au. Archived from the original on 1 May 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  6. 1 2 Funder, Anna (29 May 2026). "Berlin's long echo: How the German capital shaped the work of Australian author Anna Funder". The Nightly (Interview). Interviewed by Rocca, Jane. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  7. ↑ Funder, Anna (19 October 2011). "Behind the Wall in 'Stasiland'". Slow Travel Berlin (Interview). Interviewed by Crispin, Jessa. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Funder, Anna (24 July 2026). "Author Anna Funder talks about writing, AI and the rise of fascism". ABC News. Interviewed by Heath, Nicola. Archived from the original on 26 July 2026. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  9. 1 2 "Author Anna Funder joins the University of Sydney". The University of Sydney. 30 April 2026. Archived from the original on 14 July 2026. Retrieved 28 July 2026. Cite error: Unknown parameter "in" in <ref> tag; supported parameters are dir, follow, group, name (see the help page).
  10. ↑ "Anna Funder's towering success". University of Technology Sydney. 26 May 2022. Archived from the original on 16 March 2026. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  11. 1 2 3 Murphy, Cameron; Funder, Anna; Waldek, Gaby (8 November 2020). "In conversation with Anna funder". Intellectual Property Forum: journal of the Intellectual and Industrial Property Society of Australia and New Zealand (110): 8–14. doi:10.3316/informit.164056069963913.
  12. ↑ "Anna Funder – About". Annafunder.com. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
  13. ↑ "Results for: anna funder". The Monthly. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  14. ↑ Funder, Anna (15 June 2007). "Secret history". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 June 2026.
  15. ↑ Reilly, Maureen (30 April 2025). "'Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life' by Anna Funder". Key Peninsula News. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  16. ↑ "Secret history". the Guardian. 15 June 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  17. ↑ Frank, Maurice (19 October 2020). "Are we headed back to Stasiland?". Berliner Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  18. ↑ "For William Gibson, Seeing the Future Is Easy. But the Past?". The New York Times. 9 January 2020. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  19. ↑ "Stasiland by Anna Funder". www.penguin.com.au. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  20. ↑ "Stasiland". Granta. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  21. ↑ Kennan, ByCatherine (3 September 2011). "Celebrating courage". Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  22. ↑ Gums, Whispering (20 September 2021). "Monday musings on Australian literature: Supporting genres, 4: Literary nonfiction". Whispering Gums. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  23. 1 2 "Anna Funder". Oxford Centre for Life-Writing. Oxford University. Retrieved 29 May 2026.
  24. ↑ Marr, David (September 2011). "Anna Funder's 'All That I Am': The Magic of Exile". The Monthly. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014.
  25. ↑ Scurr, Ruth (16 September 2011). "Kindness in the shadows". Times literary supplement. 5659: 20 – via ProQuest Information and Learning.
  26. ↑ "AN AUSTRALIAN WRITER IN BROOKLYN ANNA FUNDER with Bec Zajac | The Brooklyn Rail". brooklynrail.org. 19 August 2024. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  27. ↑ Nancarrow, Daniel (20 June 2012). "Anna Funder's All That I Am wins Miles Franklin". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  28. ↑ Billen, Andrew (12 May 2012). "Book Club, May 2012". The Times. Retrieved 11 September 2024.
  29. ↑ Funder, Anna (16 July 2015). "The Girl with the Dogs by Anna Funder". Penguin Books Australia. Archived from the original on 2 July 2026. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  30. ↑ Bakewell, Sarah (26 August 2023). "One Biography Questions Orwell's Image, and Another Brings His First Wife Into Focus". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  31. ↑ Tribune, Chris Hewitt Star (16 August 2023). "Review: I loved 'Wifedom' but it will make you hate George Orwell". Star Tribune. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  32. ↑ Merritt, Stephanie (13 August 2023). "Wifedom by Anna Funder review – Mrs Orwell comes up for air". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  33. ↑ Books, Better World. "Wifedom : Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life book by Anna Funder: 9780241482728". Better World Books. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  34. ↑ Funder, Anna. "Anna Funder Wins the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger – Essai for The Invisible Madame Orwell". www.penguin.com.au. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  35. ↑ WIFEDOM | Kirkus Reviews.
  36. ↑ "100 Notable Books of 2023". NY Times. 2023. Retrieved 11 September 2024.
  37. ↑ Merritt, Stephanie (13 August 2023). "Wifedom by Anna Funder review – Mrs Orwell comes up for air". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  38. ↑ "Server Busy". www.amazon.com.au. Archived from the original on 6 November 2025. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  39. ↑ "The best books of 2023, as chosen by The Economist". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  40. ↑ Marks, Book (25 August 2023). "What Should You Read Next? Here Are the Best Reviewed Books of the Week". Literary Hub. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  41. ↑ "The 50 best books of 2023 – ranked". Telegraph Culture Desk. 24 November 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  42. ↑ "Best books of 2023 — Literary non-fiction". www.ft.com. Archived from the original on 26 December 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  43. ↑ Hughes. "Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life by Anna Funder review - the woman behind 1984". The Times. Retrieved 30 May 2026.
  44. ↑ Heckscher, Ness. "Democracy Forum at UTS". www.uts.edu.au. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  45. ↑ "ICORN international cities of refuge network". Icorn.org. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  46. ↑ "Advisory Panel". Australian Privacy Foundation. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  47. ↑ Powles, Julia (10 September 2025). "Tech companies are stealing our books, music and films for AI. It's brazen theft and must be stopped". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  48. ↑ "Hansard Display". Parliament of Australia. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  49. ↑ Free, Alana (1 October 2025). "'It's not copy-charity. It's copyright': Authors oppose copyright exception for AI training at Senate Inquiry". Australian Society of Authors. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  50. ↑ "Anna Funder on courage (p2): Sydney PEN 3 Voices Project". YouTube. 2 May 2013. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  51. ↑ "Courage, Survival, Greed - Anna Funder, Melissa Lucashenko, Christopher Kremmer and Sydney PEN". www.allenandunwin.com. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  52. 1 2 3 4 5 "Anna Funder". oclw.web.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  53. ↑ "Is it Fascism Yet? | Sydney Opera House". www.sydneyoperahouse.com. Retrieved 29 June 2026.
  54. ↑ "Anna Funder: Remembering the Victims | RNH". Retrieved 29 June 2026.
  55. ↑ "Hamsters with Plasmas" (PDF). Libertyvictoria.org. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  56. ↑ "Watch Anna Funder on courage: Sydney PEN 3 Voices Project – SlowTV Episodes – How To Videos – Blip". Blip.tv. 18 November 2008. Archived from the original on 4 November 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  57. ↑ "Dymphna Clark Lecture by Anna Funder – Events at The University of Melbourne". Events.unimelb.edu.au. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  58. ↑ "Eye-witness accounts from the front lines of our times: their political and social impact". www.onassis.org. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  59. ↑ "IAPP UK Data Protection Intensive 2024 Highlights: Dive into AI, Data Privacy, & Cybersecurity". www.axiomlaw.com. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  60. ↑ Zweifel-Keegan, Cobun (29 March 2024). "A view from DC: The path to IAPP Global Privacy Summit 2024 | IAPP". IAPP.org. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  61. ↑ "Podcast: Closing Address: Anna Funder: Bears Out There". swf.org.au. 1 July 2025. Retrieved 31 May 2026.
  62. 1 2 3 4 "Anna Funder". ABC listen. 18 June 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2026.
  63. ↑ "Funder, Anna 1966-". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  64. ↑ Reilly, Maureen (30 April 2025). "'Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell's Invisible Life' by Anna Funder". Key Peninsula News. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  65. ↑ "Literature assessment meeting report – December 2011". Australia Council for the Arts. December 2011. Archived from the original on 17 May 2013. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
  66. ↑ Wood, Stephanie (7 December 2011). "The provocateurs". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 28 June 2026.
  67. ↑ "Sydney's Top 100 Most Influential People". The Sydney Morning Herald. 7 December 2011. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  68. ↑ "Women of Style – Women of Style Winners 2013". InStyle. Archived from the original on 4 November 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  69. ↑ Funder, Anna (25 July 2025). "Anna Funder, Woman Of Influence". Harper's Bazaar Australia (Interview). Archived from the original on 11 April 2026. Retrieved 28 July 2026. originally appeared in the June/July 2025 issue of Harper's Bazaar Australia/New Zealand.
  70. ↑ "Free Agent". The Monthly. 6 December 2012. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  71. ↑ "Anna Funder on life in the US: 'I underestimated what a radically different culture it has'". The Guardian. 29 September 2015.
  72. ↑ "Meet the Panellists of Critical Mass – 4.00pm – 4.30pm Sundays on ABC TV". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
[edit source]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anna_Funder&oldid=1366669432"