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Before the Wall Came Down
The narrative of Before The Wall Came Down takes place in many overlapping planes. Together with his personal experiences, the author worked and traveled in the company of friends, retracing the forays of a man who crossed Eastern Europe, meeting a myriad of people, some of whom have had a historical and relevant impact on his life, described with unexpected anecdotes.
The description of a time that seems to have crystallized thanks to the supporting evidence of magnificent photographs, returns with nostalgia and melancholy through images that have become a peasant world that Rupert had the privilege of witnessing with his own eyes and, thanks to his lens, documenting and immortalising forever.
Moments of real life which in some moments become hilariously humourous, a leap in time which opens a window onto a crucial historical period for the XX the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 1980s, which in cascade is reflected throughout the Soviet bloc. A heartfelt story, to be read carefully. It’s impossible not to feel elegiac for those who in those years had the opportunity to take a trip and develop a camera roll, and that the author generously unveils. A reflection, too, compared to the bulimic consumption of images taken on cell phones and junk speed society of today.
Rupert is a graduate of both Liverpool University and The London School of Printing. Having passed through London and New York he has been living and working in Medellin, Colombia since 2005 where he previously authored “The Viva Effect”.
The description of a time that seems to have crystallized thanks to the supporting evidence of magnificent photographs, returns with nostalgia and melancholy through images that have become a peasant world that Rupert had the privilege of witnessing with his own eyes and, thanks to his lens, documenting and immortalising forever.
Moments of real life which in some moments become hilariously humourous, a leap in time which opens a window onto a crucial historical period for the XX the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 1980s, which in cascade is reflected throughout the Soviet bloc. A heartfelt story, to be read carefully. It’s impossible not to feel elegiac for those who in those years had the opportunity to take a trip and develop a camera roll, and that the author generously unveils. A reflection, too, compared to the bulimic consumption of images taken on cell phones and junk speed society of today.
Rupert is a graduate of both Liverpool University and The London School of Printing. Having passed through London and New York he has been living and working in Medellin, Colombia since 2005 where he previously authored “The Viva Effect”.
268 pages, Paperback
Published July 30, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 9, 2025
Rupert’s writing transported me, as if I was alongside him living this experiences. I found myself laughing and also praying for him to get out of trouble. It’s obvious that this book was written with much care and love.
“It is hard to come away from either Dachau or Buchenwald without a total hatred of those who carried out such atrocities. At Buchenwald alone 250,000 prisoners from across Europe were kept, one of the largest concentration camps in Germany with more than 56,000 slave-labourers dying there between July 1937 and April 1945. However, despite the millions who were slaughtered during WWII, the world often doesn't appear to have learnt its lesson.”
“After more sign language the penny dropped. lacob was his mother who was living in the Netherlands. Even under the Ceausescu regime on rare occasions elderly people were given special dispensation to leave Romania, ostensibly because they were at the end of their useful working lives and the state would avoid having to support them during their old age. Dimitru's mother had clearly taken that opportunity but that meant he could no longer contact her…”
“He who controls the past controls the future, as Orwell put it so well in 1948, almost a manuscript for Ceaucescu's work, they simply controlled everything, especially history.”
“Despite their suffering, Romanians, without exception, I found to be welcoming and prepared to share the little they had.”
“It is hard to come away from either Dachau or Buchenwald without a total hatred of those who carried out such atrocities. At Buchenwald alone 250,000 prisoners from across Europe were kept, one of the largest concentration camps in Germany with more than 56,000 slave-labourers dying there between July 1937 and April 1945. However, despite the millions who were slaughtered during WWII, the world often doesn't appear to have learnt its lesson.”
“After more sign language the penny dropped. lacob was his mother who was living in the Netherlands. Even under the Ceausescu regime on rare occasions elderly people were given special dispensation to leave Romania, ostensibly because they were at the end of their useful working lives and the state would avoid having to support them during their old age. Dimitru's mother had clearly taken that opportunity but that meant he could no longer contact her…”
“He who controls the past controls the future, as Orwell put it so well in 1948, almost a manuscript for Ceaucescu's work, they simply controlled everything, especially history.”
“Despite their suffering, Romanians, without exception, I found to be welcoming and prepared to share the little they had.”
September 19, 2025
For me reading this book felt like being taken by the hand and gently walked through a world divided, yet still full of tenderness. What struck me most wasn’t the weight of history, but the quiet resilience of people who, even when surrounded by shadows, still managed to offer light. Strangers sharing a meal, neighbors opening their doors, small gestures of kindness blooming in the most unlikely places, for me these are reminders that humanity survives not in grand declarations, but in the simple act of caring for one another.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews