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Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
by: Anna Funder

List Price: £7.99

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Used Price: £0.66
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 943
EAN: 9781862076556
ISBN: 1862076553
Label: Granta Books
Manufacturer: Granta Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: June 17, 2004
Publisher: Granta Books
Studio: Granta Books
Sales Rank: 10999

Related Items:

The Berlin Wall: 13 August 1961 - 9 November 1989

Stasi: The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police

After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life That Came Next

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Fascinating, but not to be read as a history book
I picked this up after watching "The Lives of Others." The book is well written, mixing evocative (sometimes over-elaborate) reflections with a much more sparse style when retelling some of the scarcely believable stories of the misery of life in the GDR. Some of her observations are very sharp, such as her objection to items which are still of live interest being put on display in a museum. I thought the ending was disappointing. However, books like this are often nothing more than expanded magazine articles, a charge that cannot be made here. Recommended.

Rating:

- An insight into East Germany
I had this book bought for me many months ago, but left it on the shelf until recently.
Having little or no insight into the problems of living in East Germany, I found it very well written, and very engaging. Incidently it is written as non-fiction, but presented in such a narrative way that you would think it was ficticious, and for me reading history is made easier when presented in that format.
It was a grim but interesting journey into life under the control of the 'stasi'. This police state, controlled not only by the state, but also by ordinary people in the street forced into having to 'work' for the state, to control the citizens by some of the most cruel methods, makes for a painful read. It highlights a period before ... Read More:

Rating:

- Total Information Awareness
Anna Funder gives a sharply cut and moving (in)human face to the now defunct German Democratic Republic by interviewing former Stasi members (the top, foreign spies, informants, organizers) and their direct or indirect victims.
In `a world where there was nothing to buy, nowhere to go, and where anyone who wanted to do anything other than serve the Party, risked persecution or worse', the Stasi's aim was to know everything about everybody with all means, even radiation. As the author poetically states: everybody had `a mirror Nemesis' in a Stasi department. The result was that everyone suspected everyone else and turned into an `internal emigration' for the sheltering of their secret inner lives.
In fact, the Stasi was a formidable ... Read More:

Rating:

- Personal, and great for it.
Like negative reviews here, I agree that this is a very personal book. However, I do not accept this is a valid criticism - it never claims to be anything else, and it is also warm, vivid, fascinating and well written. These are stories from the past, and (almost) present that collectively provide a rich and absorbing picture. It's not an endlessly footnoted history text...so what?

Rating:

- Disappointing
The history of the Stasi and their place in the DDR regime could make a fascinating and important book. This, unfortunately, is not that book. Instead, this is the journal of an Australian writer living in eastern Germany as she meets various people with experience of the Stasi. It reads rather like a travel book, and - like most travel writers - Ms Funder believes that she is more interesting than her subject. We are treated to repetitive and pointless accounts of her thoughts, her train and bus journeys, her dreams, and her time spent doing nothing in her almost-empty apartment.

The real content of the book consists of 11 interviews with people connected (as employees or victims) with the Stasi. Except in two cases, Ms Funder makes ... Read More:

Books : Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall