Julia Franck – författare

Scientist Nelly Senff is desperate to escape her life in East Berlin. The father of her two children has supposedly committed suicide, and she wants to leave behind the prying eyes of the Stasi.But the West is not all she hoped for. Nelly and her children are held in Marienfelde, a refugee processing centre and no-man’s-land between East and West. There she meets Krystyna, a Polish woman who hopes that medical treatment in the West will save her dying brother; Hans, a troubled actor released from prison in the East; and John, a CIA man monitoring the refugees for possible Stasi spies. All lives cross here, in this gateway to a new life.Now an award-winning film

Born in East Berlin, Julia is eight when her actress mother uproots her family of four girls, by different fathers, in search of a better life. Their eventual landing in the remote countryside of Schleswig-Holstein solves no problems for this fractured household.Desperate to escape a childhood of rural poverty, neglect and shame, the lonely child becomes addicted to writing. Aged 13, she leaves her family. At school in West Berlin, she finally encounters love. In this gripping novel based on her youthful diaries and early life, Julia Franck shows why, and how, a great writer found her voice.