Reimann

Siblings, the first English translation of a novel by German writer Brigitte Reimann, opens with a bang, an argument – “I’ll never forgive you” – and the fear of violence: “When we’d argued in the past, he’d thrown shoes at me and once even a vase.”It’s a splendid opening for a story of what happens when the tense bonds of family are stretched to snapping point by the politics of a divided nation. The rest of the novel builds up to the argument, which is between brother and sister Uli and Elisabeth Arendt, residents of…

As a young woman in East Germany, Brigitte Reimann claimed that she would rather live 30 wild years than 70 well-behaved ones. When she died from cancer in 1973, aged only 39, she left behind an impressive but tantalisingly incomplete set of literary achievements. Her life – as her riveting diaries and autobiographical novels attest – was as fascinating as she hoped it would be. Reimann started writing early and quickly became a GDR literary star. A dedicated socialist, she joined a state initiative that sent her to write…