East Germany may have been—until now—the most perfected surveillance state of all time. In Stasiland Anna Funder tells extraordinary stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship, and of those who worked for its vicious secret police, the Stasi.
She meets Miriam, who as a sixteen-year-old was accused of trying to start World War III. She visits the regime’s cartographer, a man obsessed to this day with the Berlin Wall, then gets drunk with the legendary “Mik Jegger” of the east, once declared by the authorities “no longer to exist.” And she finds spies and Stasi men, in hiding but defiant, still loyal to the regime as they lick their wounds and regroup, hoping for the next revolution.
Stasiland is a brilliant, timeless portrait of a Kafkaesque world, as gripping as any thriller. In a world of total surveillance, its celebration of human conscience and courage is as potent as ever.
Anna Funder ’s international bestseller, Stasiland, won the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction. Her debut novel, All That I Am, won many prizes, including the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children.
Denica Fairman ’s numerous theater appearances include Peter Pan, The House of Stairs, Julius Caesar, Nicholas Nickleby, Twelfth Night, and On the Verge. Among her television credits are Sleepers, Hard Cases, and Letters from a Bomber Pilot. She also appeared in the films The Fabulous Hurt and Duck.