Stasiland

By: Anna Funder

Narrated by: Denica Fairman

Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

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

Critic reviews

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

great read to get a sense of like in the GDR

I enjoyed the ordinary stories that where at times totally unbelievable. get lost in stasiland.

OK but not serious history or oral history.

Some interesting anecdotes and mini bios but all too subjective. The reader aggravates this with the comedy caricature voices for ex Stasi, and anyone not mesmerised by the post unification experiences. There is more than enough for which East Germany can be criticised, no need to lay it on quite so thick.

struggling to listen to the narrator...

...as she's rather too "actorly". Some of the direct speech quotes are excruciating. That said, the lives told in this book, and the history of East Germany, are fascinating. I shall try and finish listening to it but this book for me would have been better read than listened to. Tbh if I could have returned it, I would have, and then read the book.

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.

Very interesting

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

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

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.

A fascinating glimpse behind the wall

This book should absolutely be part of the school curriculum, but they wouldn’t do that because lays bare the true horrors and paranoia of Marxism.

The narrator was amazing and made me feel I was there.

Fairly new to audio books but listened to enough to know it’s all about the narrator. Denica weaves the spoken word with seeable descriptions and transposes the emotions of the characters into the listener world. I really enjoyed this audio book thank you.

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.

The social history of stasi terror

There are few books that focus specifically on the GDR and this is worth your time. The author is personable and sympathetic to the victims of the regime. My only criticism is that she doesn't really interview credible people who are ostalgic. Everyone who she interviews who have these views tend to be stasi men or crackpots.