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A convoluted ‘shaggy dog story’
A book that will be relished by those who can’t wait for another socialist nightmare story, suggests JOHN GREEN
TORTURE BY POETRY’: GROMA Kolibri typewriter, Made in East Germany, c1956
[Pic: Sommeregger and Stasi logo jgaray both Creative Commons]
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys an imaginative revival of the dance classic
MARIA DUARTE and JOHN GREEN review Michael, The North, Exit 8, Rose of Nevada
GORDON PARSONS salutes the apt return of Brecht’s vaudevillian cartoon drama that retains the vitality of the boxing or the circus ring
New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, John Luther Adams
Banksy’s identity may have been published – but was the investigation in the public interest, asks PETER BENGTSEN
The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War
By Philip Oltermann
Faber & Faber £14.99
PHILIP OLTERMANN is the Guardian’s German correspondent and is clearly keen to jump aboard the gravy train of Stasi horror stories. In discussing this latest “Stasi revelation” book, it is difficult to know where to start in terms of trying to discover factual nuggets buried beneath the huge slagheap of fabulation.
In researching his book, Oltermann takes the easy seam, already well mined by his forerunners. He plunders the “Stasi Archives” to investigate the story behind a poetry circle set up by members of the GDR’s Ministry of State Security (MfS) or, in Western jargon, “the Stasi.”
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ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
JOHN GREEN has doubts about the efficacy of the Freedom of Information Act, once trumpeted by Tony Blair
A novel by Argentinian Jorge Consiglio, a personal dictionary by Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and poetry by Mexican Homero Aridjis