The bard rests on his laurels, and swipes left and right
A toxic German fairytale
JOHN GREEN takes issue with a mainstream novel designed to denigrate the GDR
REALITY DENIED: Concert in the foyer of the Palast der Republik, Jugendtanz, 1976
[Jurgen Sindermann/Bundesarchive/CC] 
MARIA DUARTE cherishes the flashes of absurd humour and theme of community healing in a documentary set in a Soviet-era Black Sea sanatorium
ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review The Courageous, The Cut, Christy, and On Swift Horses
TOM STONE sings the praises of one of the oldest open-air festivals in Britain
Chris Searle speaks to accordionist KAREN STREET
MAYER WAKEFIELD speaks to Urielle Klein-Mekongo about activism, musical inspiration and the black British experience
The Granddaughter
Bernhard Schlink, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20
SCHLINK’s novel, The Reader, was made into an acclaimed film, starring Kate Winslet. In that novel, he dealt with Germany’s Nazi legacy. In this novel, he takes the legacy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as his subject.
Schlink concocts a story to illustrate the mainstream narrative of Germany having lived through two dictatorships and of a continuous timeline of development between Nazism and the GDR. It is little wonder that his novels have garnered approbation in the mainstream press.
Like virtually all books written about life in the GDR by (West-) German authors, this one is replete with the usual tropes. The author is also one of those who was parachuted into a leading position in East Germany after unification — or “annexation” as many former GDR citizens call it — becoming a professor of law at Berlin’s Humboldt university.
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