Read by Denica Fairman

East Germany may have been-until now-the most perfected surveillance state of all time. In Stasiland Anna Funder tells extraordinary stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship, and of those who worked for its vicious secret police, the Stasi. She meets Miriam, who as a sixteen-year-old was accused of trying to start World War III. She visits the regime's cartographer, a man obsessed to this day with the Berlin Wall, then gets drunk with the legendary "Mik Jegger" of the east, once declared by the authorities "no longer to exist." And she finds spies and Stasi men, in hiding but defiant, still loyal to the regime as they lick their wounds and regroup, hoping for the next revolution. Stasiland is a brilliant, timeless portrait of a Kafkaesque world, as gripping as any thriller. In a world of total surveillance, its celebration of human conscience and courage is as potent as ever. "Fascinating, entertaining, hilarious, horrifying, and very important." "Superb…Still as acutely creepy a look into what life was actually like there as I've been able to find." "Anna Funder explores, in the most humane and sensitive way, lives blighted by the East German Stasi. She allows ex-Stasi operatives an equal chance to reflect on their achievements, and finds-to her dismay and ours-that they have learned nothing." "Unforgettable." "Stasiland demonstrates that great, original reporting is still possible…A heartbreaking, beautifully written book. A classic for sure." "Stasiland takes us on a grim journey into a country in which the ratio of watchers to watched was even higher than that of the Soviets under communism."

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