AUDIO: Writers & Company

Ingo Schulze

Literature after the Wall

East German author Ingo Schulze, left, talked to Eleanor Wachtel, right, host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company, when he was in Toronto for the International Festival of Authors at the end of October 2009.

Ingo Schulze is one of the first East German writers to chronicle the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification with West Germany. His writing explores the disorienting period of adjustment that East Germans underwent after the collapse of the Communist regime, which encompassed both euphoria and more conflicted feelings about identity and a society changing rapidly and not always for the better.

Born in 1962 in Dresden in the former East Germany, Schulze studied classical philology at the University of Jena and worked as a dramaturge at a state-run theatre in the small city of Altenburg. After the events of November 1989, he founded a weekly newspaper in Altenburg and after a brief stay in St. Petersburg, turned to fiction writing. His first novel, 33 Moments of Happiness, came out in 1995, and since then, his work has been widely translated. Today, he lives in Berlin with his wife and two daughters. His latest novel to come out in English is New Lives about the period of transition in 1989-90. Eleanor Wachtel, host of CBC Radio's Writers & Company, talked to Schulze about his latest work and the transformation of East Germany when he was in Toronto for the International Festival of Authors at the end of October 2009.

LISTEN (52:11)

Eleanor Wachtel's interview with Ingo Schulze airs on CBC Radio One on Nov. 8, 2009, at 5:00 p.m. PT, MT, CT, 3:00 ET, AT and 3:30 NT and Nov. 11 at 2:00 p.m.