Siblings
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'Spare, chilling, with wild flashes of vivid colour and the tempo of a thriller, Siblings jolts us into the beating heart of a family and post-war East Germany, conjuring the political dreams and divisions that make and ultimately break both' Lisa Appignanesi
1960. The border between East and West Germany has closed.
For Elisabeth - a young painter - the GDR is her generation's chance to build a glorious, egalitarian socialist future. For her brother Uli, it is a place of stricture and oppression. Separating them is the ever-wider chasm of the Party line; over them loom the twin spectres of opportunity and fear, and the shadow of their defector brother Konrad. In prose as bold as a scarlet paint stroke, Brigitte Reimann battles with the clash of idealism and suppression, familial loyalty, and desire. The result is this ground-breaking classic of post-war East German literature.
Translated by Lucy Jones
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The spirited English-language debut from Reimann (1933–1973) chronicles young love, idealism, and disillusionment in 1960s East Germany. Twenty-something siblings Elisabeth and Uli Arendt visit their parents over Easter weekend, accompanied by Elisabeth's fiancé, Joachim, a Communist Party member and manager of a mill. Elisabeth, a painter, loves Joachim, but she treasures her bond with Uli, which borders on romantic, so it's a shock when Elisabeth learns that Uli, an engineer frustrated with political difficulties that have hurt his career, is planning to defect to West Germany, as their materialistic, resentful older brother Konrad has already done. Desperate to keep Uli with her, Elisabeth contemplates informing on him to Joachim. As the weekend unfolds, Elisabeth reflects on painful memories of their childhood during fascism and on her own difficulties under communism, all the while arguing with Uli, who vows to bring communist principles to "his" shipyard in the west, a contradiction Elisabeth calls him on. There are plenty of engaging discussions about industry and politics, which Reimann enlivens with Elisabeth's volatility and enthusiasm. It stands as a solid work of socialist realism.
