“I like trains. I like their rhythm, and I like the freedom of being suspended between two places, all anxieties of purpose taken care of: for this moment I know where I am going.”
― Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
― Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
“Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so.”
― All That I Am
― All That I Am
“People were crazy with pain and secrets.”
― Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
― Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
“In this land
I have made myself sick with silence
In this land
I have wandered, lost
In this land
I hunkered down to see
What will become of me.
In this land
I held myself tight
So as not to scream.
-But I did scream, so loud
That this land howled back at me
As hideously
As it builds its houses.
In this land
I have been sown
Only my head sticks
Defiant, out of the earth
But one day it too will be mown
Making me, finally
Of this land.
-Charlie's poem”
― Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
I have made myself sick with silence
In this land
I have wandered, lost
In this land
I hunkered down to see
What will become of me.
In this land
I held myself tight
So as not to scream.
-But I did scream, so loud
That this land howled back at me
As hideously
As it builds its houses.
In this land
I have been sown
Only my head sticks
Defiant, out of the earth
But one day it too will be mown
Making me, finally
Of this land.
-Charlie's poem”
― Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall
“At the end of our lives it is our loves we remember most, because they are what shaped us. We have grown to be who we are around them, as around a stake.”
― All That I Am
― All That I Am
Tapo’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Tapo’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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