num_pages: 262
description: Provocative and hilarious, Heroes Like Us was the first novel to comment on the downfall of East Germany by an author who had grown up with the Berlin Wall. Klaus Uhltzscht, born in 1968 in East Germany, grows up across the street from the Ministry of State Security, and he is inspired early on to do his share to win the Cold War. Naturally he joins the Secret Police, but his glorious career as an international agent never materializes. Instead, he spends countless hours keeping his fellow citizens under close surveillance -- never quite sure what he is looking for. Frustrated on all counts, Klaus's life is changed only when a strange accident in the fall of 1989 dramatically alters the size of his penis.
language: English
title: Heroes Like Us
titlecomplete: Heroes Like Us
genres: Drama, Comedy, Humor, Novels, German Literature, Germany, 20th Century, Contemporary, Fiction
ratings_count: 565
places: Berlin
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize
category: John Brownjohn, awardedAt: 915177600000
name: Schlegel-Tieck Prize
category: John Brownjohn
publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux