In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two Germanies
reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist.
Stasiland is the extraordinary tales from the underbelly of the former
East Germany, a country where the headquarters of the secret police
can become a museum literally overnight, and one in fifty East Germans
were informing on their countrymen and women.
In it, we meet Miriam, who as a sixteen-year-old might have started
the Third World War, visits the man who painted the line which became
the Berlin Wall and gets drunk with the legendary ‘Mik Jegger’ of the
East, who the authorities once declared — to his face — to ‘no longer
exist’.
This week's book is Stasiland by Anna Funder and we'll not be meeting at The Fletcher Moss on William Street in Didsbury but will be meeting online — contact us for details.
As we're coming to the end of our reading list, we'll be choosing books at the meeting. You may like to consider the unread books list and the unreadable books list.