To write this non-fiction work about life in the former East Germany, Anna Funder interviewed former Stasi officers and the people they surveilled. Described in the National Library of Australia record as 'A book of travel, history and biography that reads like a documentary novel,' Stasiland takes 'a deliberately subjective and "literary" approach' to its material with an 'emphasis on a sympathetic authorial persona as the source of the reader's perspective' (Susan Lever 'The Crimes of the Past: Anna Funder's Stasiland and Helen Garner's Joe Cinque's Consolation'. Paper delivered at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) conference 2006).
Unit Suitable For
AC: Year 11 (English Unit 1 and Unit 2)
Themes
change, how literature plays witness to history, identity, interplay of authority and identity, Power, rebellion, time
General Capabilities
Critical and creative thinking, Ethical understanding, Information and communication technology, Literacy, Personal and social
'To understand their characters' border crossings - historical, transnational, personal, physical and generic - Australian writers, Anna Funder and David Sornig researched their Berlin settings in situ, in literature and through writing praxis. Berlin crossings can be mapped from East to West and ideologically from left to right, through traumatic national history, biographies and authorial backstories.' (Introduction)