What are some good books that take place in East Germany?

June 16, 2009 1:36 PM

Can anyone recommend good books (fiction or non-fiction) that take place in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall?
posted by comfortinsound to writing & language (15 comments total)

Christoph Hein wrote a very well-known novel, "The Distant Lover" (Der fremde Freund -- called Drachenblut in West Germany) about a woman's personal alienation from herself and all circumstances around her. It's good. At least, I enjoyed it. Christa Wolf is also sometimes good, but not always -- if you're looking for English translations I couldn't recommend anything in particular.
posted by creasy boy at 1:59 PM on June 16

I should add: if we knew what the nature of your interest in East Germany is, it might help us answer the question better.
posted by creasy boy at 2:00 PM on June 16

LeCarre: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold definitely.
posted by Neiltupper at 2:03 PM on June 16 [2 favorites has favorites]

Stasiland.
posted by zamboni at 2:05 PM on June 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

Seconding Stasiland. There's also Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police and The File: A Personal History.

Some general histories:
- Mike Dennis, The Rise and Fall of the German Democractic Republic
- Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship: Inside the GDR
- Frederick Taylor, The Berlin Wall: A World Divided
- Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (not exclusively about East Germany, but has some great discussions regarding the GDR within the broader context of Europe's division into Eastern vs. Western blocs)

In terms of fiction, Peter Schneider's The Wall Jumper looks at Berliners on both sides of the Wall.

If you happen to be interested in art history, I will be a little gauche and self-promote an exhibition catalogue I edited: Art of Two Germanys: Cold War Cultures. The chapters on photography and East German underground art give some particular insights into what daily life was like under the GDR regime.
posted by scody at 2:17 PM on June 16

Because I suspected that the fall of the Berlin wall will be celebrated in November, I've read the Berlin Journal, 1989–1990 of the historian Robert Darnton, which contains some excellent journalism. It's very good on what the normal life was in Berlin under DDR rule.
posted by ijsbrand at 2:25 PM on June 16

Fiction: Ian McEwan, The Innocent. It actually takes place post-WWII but pre-Wall. I found it interesting.

Nonfiction: Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism. One third of the book tells the stories of people coping with what their loved ones did during the GDR years.
posted by Beardman at 2:38 PM on June 16

Zoo Station: Adventures in East and West Berlin by Ian Walker.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:17 PM on June 16

It's a kid's book, but still notable. Freya on The Wall, by T. Degens. Also,

http://www.remote.org/frederik/culture/berlin/books.html.
posted by ShadePlant at 4:43 PM on June 16

In the novels Quiller routinely passed through both East and West. The Striker Portfolio has action on both sides, with our man detained for a time in a psychiatric prison in East Germany. Also, his first novel's mostly set in Berlin.
posted by Rash at 4:50 PM on June 16

And just before everything changed, Quiller KGB.
posted by Rash at 5:09 PM on June 16

Definitely Stasiland.
posted by greycap at 5:32 PM on June 16

A third vote for Stasiland, which is awesome.
posted by the latin mouse at 1:35 AM on June 17

My mom really likes author Nicholas Shakespeare, one of his novels, Snowleg, is about East Germany.
posted by Kattullus at 4:32 AM on June 17

The Draining Lake, a mystery novel by Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason, has a central plot concerning socialist foreign students attending an East German university and becoming disillusioned with the communist dictatorship.
posted by matildaben at 6:57 AM on June 17 [1 favorite has favorites]