The Life and Death of Petra Kelly - Hardcover

Parkin, Sara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 004440896X ISBN 13: 9780044408963

Publisher: Rivers Oram Press/Pandora List, 1994

Synopsis

Petra Kelly was born Petra Karin Lehmann in 1947 in Bavaria. She spent her teenage years in sixties America after her mother remarried a GI and the family moved to Virginia. After a displaced adolescence, during which she saw her sister, Grace, die of eye cancer, Kelly threw herself into politics and cut her political teeth working on the campaigns of Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. She returned to Europe in 1970. Her extraordinary political passion, combined with lobbying skills and international contacts, ensured that she immediately shot to prominence within the emerging green and peace movements.
Petra met Gert Bastian in the early eighties. Bastian was a NATO general, a war veteran who rocked the German establishment by joining protests against US nuclear weapons in Germany, then joined the Greens and fell in love with Petra Kelly.
In this meticulously researched biography, Sara Parkin goes behind the public charisma of Petra Kelly to reveal the contradictions of her complex character, a woman at once sure of her vision but desperately insecure, wielding massive power in the outside world but wholly dependent in her intimate life.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

On October 19 1992 Petra Kelly, co-founder of the German Green Party and one of the most charismatic radical leaders of post-war Europe, was found dead in her Bonn home. She had been shot through the head. Her lover Gert Bastian was lying shot dead in the hallway.

In this meticulously researched biography, Sarah Parkin goes behind the public charisma of Kelly to reveal the contradictions of her complex character, a woman at once sure of her vision but desperately insecure, wielding massive power in the outside world but wholly dependent in her intimate life. Not only is this the first full biography of an extraordinary and significant life, but it sheds new light on the reasons behind her death.

"The author has done a great job...the story bursts out of the pages. Let there be an opera made from this material. Not a soap opera but a grand opera."
WASHINGTON POST

"As a study of a remarkable woman who made a huge dent in a male-dominated political world and helped put environmental issues high on the agenda of every party in Europe, Parkin's work is authoritative and detailed."
PETER MILLAR, 'The Sunday Times'

"Compelling, well-researched biography"
ADRIANNE BLUE, 'The Independent'

"A tangled web of intrigue which has all the ingredients of a murder mystery thriller...Parkin paints a fascinating picture of the founder of Germany's influential Green Party"
LORRAINE BUTLER, 'Today'

Synopsis:

On 20 October 1992 Petra Kelly, founder of the German Green Party and one of the most charismatic radical leaders of postwar Europe, was found dead in her Bonn home. She had been shot through the head. Her lover, Gert Bastian, was lying shot dead in the hallway. The couple had lain undiscovered for almost three weeks. Petra Kelly was born Petra Lehmann in 1947 in Bavaria. She spent her teenage years in fifties America, after her mother remarried a GI and the family moved to Virginia. After a displaced adolescence Kelly threw herself into politics and cut her political teeth working on the campaigns of Hubert Humphrey and Robert Kennedy. She returned to Europe in the late 60s. Her extraordinary political passion ensured that she immediately shot to prominence within the emerging green and peace movements. By the mid-70s Die Grunen was a vibrant force, and Petra their tireless international ambassador. In this biography, Sara Parkin goes behind the public charisma of Petra Kelly to reveal the contradictions of her complex character, a woman at once sure of her vision but desperately insecure, wielding massive power in the outside world but wholly dependant in her intimate life.

The book sheds new light on the reasons behind, and circumstances of, her death.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rivers Oram Press/Pandora List
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 004440896X
• ISBN 13: 9780044408963
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256