2004 -The Winner
Stasiland: Stories
from Behind the Berlin Wall
In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two
Germanies reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. In
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, there
are a thousand stories just waiting to get out.
Anna Funder tells extraordinary tales from the underbelly
of the former East Germany – she meets Miriam, who
as a sixteen-year-old might have started World War III, visits
the man who painted the line which became the Berlin Wall
and gets drunk with the legendary ‘Mik Jegger’ of
the east, once declared by the authorities to his face to ‘no
longer to exist’. This is history full of emotion,
attitude and complexity.
Anna Funder was born in Melbourne in 1966 and grew up there
and in Paris. She has worked as an international lawyer and
a radio and television producer. In 1997 she was writer-in-residence
at the Australia Centre in Potsdam. Stasiland – which
was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and in
Australia for The Age Book of the Year and the Queensland
Premier’s Literary Awards for non-fiction – is
her first book.
She lives in Sydney with her husband and daughter.
Publicist: Louise Campbell, Granta 020 7704 9776
lcampbell@granta.com
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