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Berlin Wall

The Fall of the Berlin Wall: Stories between East and West

Top German Titles Marking the 30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Compiled by Alyson Coombes and Rosie Goldsmith

Single title

Der Gott der Stadt

God of the City

Set in the 1990s in a newly reunified Berlin, Der Gott der Stadt by author and theatre director Christiane Neudecker...

Set in the 1990s in a newly reunified Berlin, Der Gott der Stadt by author and theatre director Christiane Neudecker is a tightly plotted literary novel – and a study of evil. A group of fiercely competitive students at an elite acting school are staging a play based on Georg Heym’s obscure Faust fragment when they find a body on the stage. It is 16th January and the same date that Heym himself drowned decades earlier while ice-skating. What is the cause of this uncanny death? Is it murder, suicide, or even a pact with the devil?

Publisher:
Topic:
Fiction
ISBN:
978-3-630-87566-8
Author:
Christiane Neudecker
Pages:
672
Price:
€ 24.00
Punching at the World

Punching at the World

Lukas Rietzschel’s bestselling debut tells the story of two brothers, Philipp and Tobias, born in the 1990s in the former...

Lukas Rietzschel’s bestselling debut tells the story of two brothers, Philipp and Tobias, born in the 1990s in the former GDR. At first their family seems to be making a success of life in reunified Germany, but as the boys get older, their parents divorce and Tobias falls in with a group of neo-Nazis determined to prevent refugees from settling in their area, the future looks less bright. This highly topical novel offers an unusual take on the ”GDR novel“ and provides a timely insight into the rise of right-wing extremism in Germany and Europe today.

Publisher:
Topic:
Fiction
ISBN:
978-3-548-06103-0
Author:
Lukas Rietzschel
Pages:
320
Price:
€ 12.00
An einem klaren eiskalten Januarmorgen

One Clear Ice-Cold January Morning at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, this first novel by celebrated playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig is a contemporary Berlin fairy...

Nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, this first novel by celebrated playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig is a contemporary Berlin fairy tale. Set in the former East Berlin, the story opens with a crash on the motorway. When a wolf is captured on camera at the scene, after crossing the border from Poland, it is the first of many sightings that connect a series of individuals whose paths intersect and diverge. Schimmelpfennig writes in powerful prose and has created a hypnotic and visually arresting novel.

Publisher:
Topic:
Fiction
ISBN:
978-3-596-03476-5
Author:
Roland Schimmelpfennig
Pages:
256
Price:
€ 11.00
You Would Have Missed Me

You Would Have Missed Me

Set in West Germany in the early 1960s, Ich freue mich, dass ich geboren bin tells the story of a...

Set in West Germany in the early 1960s, Ich freue mich, dass ich geboren bin tells the story of a little girl who arrives in the West from the GDR with her parents. They are forced to live in a camp for displaced people – a common experience for East German refugees. It’s a hard life: her father is abusive, her mother negligent. In her novella, by revisiting her own childhood, Birgit Vanderbeke – whose debut Das Musschelessen won the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis – shows how the little girl escaped her own brutal reality with the help of a globe, as she imagined distant countries and faraway futures.

Publisher:
Topic:
Fiction
ISBN:
978-3-492-31112-0
Author:
Birgit Vanderbeke
Pages:
160
Price:
€ 10.00
Akte Luftballon

Balloon File.

Two Girls, One Wall, a Friendship for Life

In 1977, a young West German girl attaches her address to a yellow balloon and sets it free. She soon...

In 1977, a young West German girl attaches her address to a yellow balloon and sets it free. She soon receives an answer from a girl in East Germany, and a correspondence begins. This beautiful story of an innocent friendship – which becomes more complex as the girls reach adolescence and begin to ask increasingly difficult questions – is based on Stefanie Wally’s own experiences of a childhood friendship that transcended all borders. In 2016, Wally directed the stage adaptation of Akte Luftballon.

Publisher:
Topic:
Fiction
ISBN:
978-3-458-36433-7
Author:
Stefanie Wally
Pages:
218
Price:
€ 10.00
Herbst der Entscheidungen

Autumn of Decision.

A History of the Peaceful Revolution

Herbst der Entscheidung is a graphic novel set in Leipzig in autumn 1989. Seventeen-year-old Daniel has left school and wants...

Herbst der Entscheidung is a graphic novel set in Leipzig in autumn 1989. Seventeen-year-old Daniel has left school and wants to go to university but must first serve in the army for three years. His parents are committed to the East German state and want him to do his duty, but Daniel leaves home and ends up joining the Peaceful Revolution in Leipzig. With beautiful black-and- white illustrations by PM Hoffmann, this political coming-of-age story will resonate with young people who are beginning to shape their own views in today’s turbulent times.

Publisher:
Topic:
Graphic novel
ISBN:
978-3-86153-775-5
Author:
PM Hoffmann, Bernd Lindner
Pages:
96
Price:
€ 15.00
Todesstreifen

No Man‘s Land.

Actions Against the Wall in West Berlin 1989

Arriving in West Berlin from East Ger- many in the late 1980s, full of optimism over their new-found freedom, Dirk...

Arriving in West Berlin from East Ger- many in the late 1980s, full of optimism over their new-found freedom, Dirk Mecklenbeck, Raik Adam and two friends were shocked at the indifference they encountered in the West towards the wall and conditions in the GDR. Keen to make a radical statement, in June 1989 they threw several Molotov cocktails over the wall, triggering a series of protests against the GDR. In this acclaimed graphic novel, Mecklenbeck and Adam tell the story of this protest, from idea to execution, and of their desperate fight to secure freedom for their fellow East Germans.

Publisher:
Topic:
Graphic novel
ISBN:
978-3-86153-993-3
Author:
Dirk Mecklenbeck, Raik Adam
Pages:
96
Price:
€ 10.00
Alles nur aus Zuckersand

It‘s All Just Sugar Sand

Director and screenwriter Dirk Kummer grew up in East Berlin. This story follows the lives of two boys whose friendship...

Director and screenwriter Dirk Kummer grew up in East Berlin. This story follows the lives of two boys whose friendship is threatened by the harsh reality of life in communist East Germany. When Jonas leaves the country, Fred is left alone to deal with the loss of his best friend. The strict censorship laws seem set to stop them writing to each another until Fred’s retired neighbour, whose mail is not scrutinised quite so closely, saves the day. Alles nur aus Zuckersand is a universal and moving story of the unbreakable bonds of friendship.

Publisher:
Topic:
Children’s/young adult book
ISBN:
978-3-551-55390-4
Author:
Dirk Kummer
Pages:
144
Price:
€ 12.00
Niemandsland

No Man‘s Land

Matthias Friedrich Muecke’s autobiographical story is set in Pankow, East Berlin, during the 1960s and 1970s. Two boys swear to...

Matthias Friedrich Muecke’s autobiographical story is set in Pankow, East Berlin, during the 1960s and 1970s. Two boys swear to always remain best friends, and as they grow up under the authoritarian regime they support each other through thick and thin. But the desire for freedom and adventure will have disastrous consequences. In this atmospheric and heartfelt true story, Muecke not only writes of his own childhood memories but illustrates them with his own black-and-white drawings. It was a fairytale childhood, shaken by fear, in a long- forgotten era.

Publisher:
Topic:
Children’s/young adult book
ISBN:
978-3-942795-85-2
Author:
Matthias Friedrich Muecke
Pages:
208
Price:
€ 24.00
Date:
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