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Stasiland

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Stasiland

By: Anna Funder
Narrated by: Denica Fairman
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About this listen

Anna Funder’s Samuel Johnson Prize-winning Stasiland is an Australian classic, the definitive account of tyranny and resistance in the former East Germany.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards the two Germanies reunited and East Germany ceased to exist.

Anna Funder’s best-selling 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 16-year-old; hears the heartbreaking story of Frau Paul, who was separated from her young 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.

©2002 Anna Funder (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
20th Century Europe Germany Modern

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Critic reviews

"Funder is a superb interviewer...she truly excels in the rendering of her sessions with former Stasi employees." (Sunday Times)

What listeners say about Stasiland

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fascinating take on a moment in history

fascinating take on life for the victims of the Stasi and stasi operatives and officers in the near aftermath of the DDR.

One flaw, please get the narrator a glass of water, and then edit out the bits of her clearing her mouth! i don’t want to listen ti drymouth.

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A must read/listen

This book gives a humane insight into the horrors that affected the citizens of DDR. The extreme big brother surveillance. The arbitrary decisions made by local Stasi officials, that ruined the lives of the ordinary people. It is important to remember what actually happened. Especially since these things sometimes tends to be romanticized by some people. People who do not know the facts of history.

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Very interesting

Wow sounds like it was a difficult place to live thanks for the book lads

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The Stasi

The writer brought home to listeners how ordinary people can act towards both family and friends in cruel ways.

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Excellent book, poor choice of reader.

The history is powerful and painful, and brilliantly told, but the actor reading it seems completely disconnected to both the brutal facts of the story and the simple, serious voice which the prose - as I imagine it on the page - conveys. She seems to think it’s a comedy. Exceptionally irritating to listen to.

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Fantastic book, very well read.

The honesty and the integrity shown by the victims of the regime. The reading was very well done.

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Personal look at the aftermath of east Germany

As a west German I learnt a lot about individual experience of the stasi and how people live with the past

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An incredible story of a deeply strange time

Brilliant book. A few errors with the audio, but that doesn’t detract from how brilliant, moving and educational it is.

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This should be made into a movie.

Sometimes there are mistakes in the performance. And sometimes it’s a little bit ASMR… not everyone enjoys it.

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Compelling

I just wanted to keep listening. Some truly horrific accounts of a regime turning in on itself and taking its people with it. Well worth a listen. Overall, I liked the narration, despite a few quirks here and there.

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