1989: Richard, an expatriate American, is working a profitable yet "pointless" job selling software for a small U.S. firm in West Berlin. Katarina Weber is a married mother whose hedonistic escapades help distract him from the emptiness of his existence. When Richard ventures beyond the No Man's Land into East Berlin in order to fulfill a personal obligation, he meets Traudi Franzke, a young nurse addicted to the communist ideals inherited at an early age from her father. The ensuing relationship, separated from reality by the notorious Wall, exposes beliefs long since betrayed but clung to, nevertheless. Throughout that momentous year, Richard straddles the two distinct worlds of East and West Berlin, moving between cynicism and hope, until events send them careening toward a collision, completing a journey from an age of ideologies to the "end of history."
A ribald romp through a pivotal time and place; an intimate portrait of a revolution; a searing indictment of the human condition, "No Man's Land" reveals the farce and tragedy of Germany's division and reunification through a lens not found in any history book. In brisk, vivid prose, Califra masterfully captures "Wendezeit" Berlin; the arrogant excesses and self-indulgence of the democratic West "flaunting" its wealth, as well as the dysfunction, frustration and repression in the totalitarian East as they existed, side by side, in one city on the cusp of dramatic change.
Author: Michael Califra
Publisher: Hadrian
Published: 12/16/2015
Pages: 332
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780692342541
About the Author
Michael Califra lived and worked in Germany, mostly in Berlin, from 1986 to 1998 where he wrote the novel, "No Man's Land." When he first considered writing about the Berlin it was still divided. The challenge then was to render in fiction a situation more absurdly fictional than any he could imagine. When the Wall fell and Germany and Berlin were reunified, it soon became clear that the city he knew would be quickly erased, just as the Berlin of the Kaiser had been overtaken by Weimar Berlin, which had then been wiped away by Hitler's capital, which was then replaced by Cold War cities of East and West Berlin. Wanting to document the place he knew would soon dissolve into history was the motivation behind writing his novel. The author has also executive produced feature films starring such Hollywood talent as Rosario Dawson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Paul Rudd and Winona Ryder.
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