Review: A Germany Divided then Reunited
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 24, 2014
No Man's Land begins in 1989 West Berlin, where an American, Richard, is working, and no one knows the wall is about to be torn down, and reunification will bring both great joy and a lot of pain. Califra places his novel in a fascinating time, which now seems so long ago, but when I was growing up, the post-war split of Germany into East and West loomed large, and reunification seemed impossible. Califra deals with German psyches still reeling from WW2, and I particular the generation born afterwards which bore the burden of their culture's terrible, shameful legacy.  West Germans however were bearing it in an entirely different way than East Germans; the West Germans dealing with the anger and disgust of and ultimately reconciliation with and rebuilding by the West, and East Germans doing penance to the Soviet Union for 27 million Russians killed in the war. In the novel Richard gets to know both West and East Germans, and when the divide disappears, experiences their difficulties in reconciling both the past and the newly unified Germany, and having to deal with an entirely new set of problems and realities.  He also falls in love with an East German, and through her has to deal with the harsh (and unimaginable) realities that many Germans had to face after reunification when the Stasi files became public. Germany is a fascinating and difficult place, and Califra's vivid, detailed reconstruction of life in the divided and then united Germanies is really, really interesting, and he raises many very human, insightful issues.  This is a novel that history buffs will find fascinating, but anyone with an interest in post-War Europe or, indeed, the stresses cultural divides bring should read this book.