Uwe Timm in conversation

I was delighted to be invited to be in conversation with German author Uwe Timm on 18 March at Gleebooks in Sydney. This bilingual event (German/English) presented by the Goethe Institute of Sydney was a great opportunity for Australian readers to become familiar with one of Germany's finest contemporary novelists. Uwe has gained a fine international reputation for his novel In my brother's shadow (there is a link to my review of this book in the right hand column of this page).
If published in Australia, I am certain there would have been moves to classify this book as memoir or autobiography. Uwe insists it is fiction, even though "Uwe Timm" is the first person narrator and the book includes sections of Uwe's brother's diary from World War II.
I wonder why we in Australia need to make something "factual"? Nevertheless, "faction" is a good description of Uwe's book.