Why a Booktrail?
1989: Bornholmer Strasse is the checkpoint where crowds surged through on 9 November. Who would have thought that a book about such a horrific period in history could be written in such a unique way?
Heroes like Us
What you need to know before your trail
Klaus Uhltzscht, the aspiring teenage Nobel laureate of East Berlin claims to be history’s “missing link”. It’s a coming of age novel with a difference and the obsession with a certain body part (and not the one on the cover!)
This is a somewhat ‘alternative’ history of life in East Germany in the years leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A coming of age novel (Bildungsroman)with Klaus who believes “The story of the Wall’s end is the story of my penis”.
Travel Guide
Anyone who can combine their obsession with their body with a portrayal of the Alexanderplatz demonstration and the breech of the Berlin Wall has some kind of creativity!
Klaus takes you around his city, showing the development and changing face of the city.
He joins the Stasi of sorts, gets a copy of a German sex manual, stakes out various sites across the city on surveillance operations, and all the while feels that his sexual awakening is akin to Germany finding its own way in the world.
A best seller in Germany and a funny if not slightly surreal read about German reunification!
Where Next?
