Reading & Discussion | Moderator: Dr. Steffi Brüning (Rostock Documentation and Memorial Center/LpB MV)
What was life like in an economy of scarcity that nevertheless offered plenty of room for optimism? What shaped interpersonal relationships, and what caused “the system” to break down? Peggy Mädler paints a broad panorama of life in the GDR and in reunified Germany, stretching back to the 1960s and from there almost to the present. At the center: the artist Mona and Georg, who hopes to advance his country with the help of early computers and cybernetics. A rich ensemble of characters unfolds around them. They all meet in a village near Wandlitz, where strange, secret construction projects begin—the kind that could probably only have taken place in the GDR. With an understanding of everyday life and a feel for language, Peggy Mädler writes about a time between stability and dissolution—about closeness and alienation, conformity and perseverance.
Peggy Mädler, born in Dresden in 1976, studied theater, cultural, and educational sciences and earned her doctorate in cultural studies; she is a freelance author and dramaturg. Most recently, she co-authored the bestseller *Three East German Women Get Drunk and Found the Ideal State* with Annett Gröschner and Wenke Seemann.