RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
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JENNY FARRELL welcomes that rare thing - an authentic account of life East Germany that is both gripping as a novel and politically sentient
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Jenny Erpenbeck, Granta, £16.99
TO read Jenny Erpenbeck’s novel is an eye-opener for those who wish to find out more about life in East Germany (GDR) in the final years of its existence and beyond.
Unprejudiced readers will discover a highly cultured society, a place where everybody has free access to education, training and a job. For readers who remember the GDR, the book includes a wealth of references to a dizzying array of fine artists who lived there or those who were part of the anti-fascist tradition.
The novel spans the years 1986 to 1992, with the final section depicting the dissolution of the state, mass redundancies, unemployment, unaffordable rents and cultural hollowness.
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