This book is based on (rather than translated from) a German text published in 2004. This 2004 publication was in turn based on essays and letters written at the beginning of the 80s – very close in time to the events laid out here. The book tells the story of a childhood, and of the adolescence coming after it, spanning roughly the decade of the 1970s.
The events of this autobiography take place in countries that today no longer exist in the state and form here described, apart from being preserved in history books: racially segregated South Africa and West Germany before reunification. The book has as its backdrop Soweto, the Apartheid, border guerrilla – political protest, Red Army Fraction, Cold War. Yet though the canvas of world events is a determining factor, it is never more than a side note in the book itself.
The main thrust lies in the description of a young life flawed, strikingly so, by violence, indifference, negligence – and the deviance of almost all characters and events here portrayed; a life oscillating between the lowest and the highest societal strata. Readers of these accounts in the 2004 German edition have found the incidents and people detailed here either saddening, or amusing, or offensive, or all of these together – though even considering these sentiments: this tale has never failed to entertain.
The events of this autobiography take place in countries that today no longer exist in the state and form here described, apart from being preserved in history books: racially segregated South Africa and West Germany before reunification. The book has as its backdrop Soweto, the Apartheid, border guerrilla – political protest, Red Army Fraction, Cold War. Yet though the canvas of world events is a determining factor, it is never more than a side note in the book itself.
The main thrust lies in the description of a young life flawed, strikingly so, by violence, indifference, negligence – and the deviance of almost all characters and events here portrayed; a life oscillating between the lowest and the highest societal strata. Readers of these accounts in the 2004 German edition have found the incidents and people detailed here either saddening, or amusing, or offensive, or all of these together – though even considering these sentiments: this tale has never failed to entertain.
