Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

'An appealing blend of investigative and reflective reporting, with the narrative drive of powerful human-interest stories. . . . There is no denying Funder's journalistic talents' --.

'The best account of the strange, secretive place on the other side of the wall' --Evening Standard

'Superb... Funder skilfully deploys fictional techniques to make the material jump off the page: crafted scenes with their own story-arcs, naturalistic dialogue, fully-realised characters with their own plotlines. The atmosphere of grey grimness is vividly conveyed: but there are flashes of humour too' ***** --Independent on Sunday

'These are haunting accounts of an Orwellian time through which no one lived through without paying a high personal price' --Herald

'These rigorously researched, tenderly told stories of life inside East Germany won the Samuel Johnson prize a decade ago. It reads as a powerful backward glance of the everyday fears, terrors but also rebellions. Funder illuminates her subjects with humanity and at times, inserts herself into the story of a nation and identity divided, reminding us just how remarkable investigative journalism can be' --Independent

'These encounters with the survivors are the most harrowing and, until this book, almost forgotten' --The Times

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 50 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 16-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'. Written with wit and literary flair, Stasiland provides a rivetting insight into life behind the wall.