Stasi Poetry Circle

The extraordinary true story of the Stasi''s poetry club: Stasiland and The Lives of Others crossed with Dead Poets Society.''A magnificent book . . . at once touching, exquisite, devastating and extraordinary.''PHILIPPE SANDS, author of East West Street and The Ratline''A vivid, funny, and imperturbable portrait of Soviet Russia''s most loyal satellite.''NELL ZINKBerlin, 1982. Morale is at rock bottom in East Germany as the spectre of an all-out nuclear war looms. The Ministry for State Security is hunting for creative new weapons in the war against the class enemy - and their solution is stranger than fiction. Rather than guns, tanks, or bombs, the Stasi develop a programme to fight capitalism through rhyme and verse, winning the culture war through poetry - and the result is the most bizarre book club in history.Consisting of a small group of spies, soldiers and border guards - some WW2 veterans, others schoolboy recruits - the ''Working Group of Writing Chekists'' met monthly