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Loading... After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next (original 2002; edition 2008)by Jana Hensel
Work InformationAfter the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next by Jana Hensel (Author) (2002)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This book made me so nostalgic, maybe inappropriately, for Berlin in 2003, for my family, for my childhood cousin/penpal. I've always been fascinated by this generation and even though I just missed this publication in my Berlin classes, I'm glad I got to read it now. ( ) Oh Mann, war das übel. Ich gehöre ja selbst zur Generation der "Zonenkinder", aber die Erfahrungen der Autorin decken sich nicht einmal annäherungsweise mit meinen. Aber das wäre ja nicht so schlimm, da ja jeder die Welt anders erlebt. Schlimm war der Stil, in dem das Buch geschrieben wurde: vollkommenes inhaltliches Durcheinander, kein Konzept und der weitgehende Verzicht, diese biographische Geschichte auch biographisch darzustellen. Stattdessen immer nur ein "Wir", so als ob alle Kinder dieser Generation exakt dasselbe erlebt, getan und gefühlt haben. The voice of the author is often irritating, particularly because of the generalizations about groups of people which she makes quite firmly. Nonetheless, I haven't seen a lot of books on this fascinating topic, so it was interesting. And, it's a really easy, quick read. Was this young adult non-fiction does anyone know? For some reason, it seemed so, perhaps because of the age of the author during the time period in question. She has another book in German, I think. Wonder if it was translated.... no reviews | add a review
Jana Hensel was thirteen on November 9, 1989, the night the Berlin Wall fell. In all the euphoria over German reunification, no one stopped to think what it would mean for Jana and her generation of East Germans. These were the kids of the seventies, who had grown up in the shadow of Communism with all its hokey comforts: the Young Pioneer youth groups, the cheerful Communist propaganda, and the comforting knowledge that they lived in a Germany unblemished by an ugly Nazi past and a callous capitalist future. Suddenly everything was gone. East Germany disappeared, swallowed up by the West, and in its place was everything Jana and her friends had coveted for so long: designer clothes, pop CDs, Hollywood movies, supermarkets, magazines. They snapped up every possible Western product and mannerism. They changed the way they talked, the way they walked, what they read, where they went. They cut off from their parents. They took English lessons, and opened bank accounts. Fifteen years later, they all have the right haircuts and drive the right cars, but who are they? Where are they going? In After the Wall, Jana Hensel tells the story of her confused generation of East Germans, who were forced to abandon their past and feel their way through a foreign landscape to an uncertain future. Now as they look back, they wonder whether the oppressive, yet comforting life of their childhood wasn't so bad after all. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)943.087History and Geography Europe Germany and central Europe Historical periods of Germany Germany 1866- East And West 1945-1990LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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