Stasiland

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterward the two Germanys reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. Anna Funder’ s bestselling Stasiland brings us extraordinary tales of real lives in the former East Germany. She meets Miriam, who tried to escape to West Berlin as a sixteen-year-old; hears the heartbreaking story of Frau Paul, who was separated from her baby by the Berlin Wall; and gets drunk with the legendary “ Mik Jegger of the East, ” once declared by the authorities— to his face— “ no longer to exist. ” And she meets the Stasi men themselves, still proud of their surveillance methods. Funder’ s powerful account of that brutal world has become a contemporary classic.