Heroes like us
By: Thomas Brussig ; translated by John Brownjohn.
Contributors: Brownjohn, John.
Edition: 1st Farrar, Straus and Giroux ed.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
Subjects: Germany (East). Ministerium für Staatssicherheit -- Fiction.; Germany -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction.; Germany -- Social conditions -- Fiction.; Germany (East) -- Fiction.
Description: Klaus Uhltzscht has always tried his best to serve his nation - and to please his parents. Born in 1968 in East Germany, as Soviet tanks roll into Czechoslovakia, Klaus grows up across the street from the Ministry of State Security and 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. His mother, the goddess of hygiene, and his father, who might also work for the Stasi, do their best to keep his bodily functions and especially his sexual urges under equally close observation and control. Frustrated on all fronts, Klaus discovers an exciting new identity when a strange accident dramatically alters the size of his penis in the fall of 1989.

A bestseller in Germany, Heroes Like Us is the first novel to comment on the downfall of the former East Germany written by someone who grew up with the Berlin Wall. Provocative and hilarious, it challenges good citizens everywhere to examine their relationship to their country.