Contact Clock Question Basket Search User Store Facebook Mail Instagram Twitter

The Stasi Poetry Circle

by Philip Oltermann

The extraordinary true story of the Stasi's poetry club: Stasiland and The Lives of Others crossed with Dead Poets Society. 'Engrossing.' Observer 'Remarkable.' The Times 'Magnificent.' Phillipe Sands 'Gripping.' Literary Review 'A history so outlandish and unlikely that you feel it must be true . . . [A] grippingly well-written book.' Anthony Quinn, Observer Book of the Week In 1982, East Germany's fearsome secret police - convinced that writers were embedding subversive messages in their work - decided to train their own writers, weaponising poetry in the struggle against the class enemy. Once a month, a group of soldiers and border guards gathered in a heavily guarded military compound in East Berlin for meetings to learn how to write lyrical verse. Journalist Philip Oltermann spent five years rifling through Stasi files, digging out lost volumes of poetry and tracking down surviving members of this Red poet's society, to illustrate the little known story in which spies turned poets and poets spies.

224 pages.

Main Edition

ISBN: 9780571331208

€ 12.50 

In Stock.

Usually despatched in 2-5 working days.

Date of Publication: 02/02/2023

  
Cover of The Stasi Poetry Circle - Philip Oltermann - 9780571331208Paperback

The Stasi Poetry Circle also appears in these Categories:

History & Politics