By alternating between the two it really brings home the differences between the haves and have-nots of the East German state.įor the have-nots, everything in life is difficult. The stories of Miriam, who became an enemy of the state at just sixteen, and Frau Paul, whose sick baby had to be taken to the West and ended up separated from her for years, and Anna’s landlady Julia’s terrifying ordeal were as touching as Funder’s interviews of ex-Stasi officers were distasteful.
Taking a flat in East Berlin, she talked to both watchers and the watched, and visited the buildings of the GDR apparatus some of which have been turned into museums. Funder is an Australian journalist who learned German liking ‘the sticklebrick nature of it.’ She went on to study and live in West Berlin in the 1980s where she ‘wondered long and hard what went on behind that Wall.’ She returned in the 1990s to investigate the ‘ horror-romance‘ of the GDR, and what remained of it. Stasiland by Anna Funder is a work of investigative journalism, chronicling the lives of some people who lived in the GDR before the Berlin Wall came down. Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna FunderĪfter the racy delights of Jilly Cooper’s Riders last month, we went for something completely different for our February read.
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