Writer Jenny Erpenbeck’s profile by Steven Erlange. On living in East Germany before 1989:
In fact, she said, there was a “kind of freedom” in East Germany, where the ideology of equality meant less stress, competition and greed, and where there was comparatively little to strive for in a society that had only a few options for consumer goods.
“There are some kinds of freedom that you wouldn’t expect to have surrounded by a wall, but it’s also a freedom not to be forced to expose yourself and shout out all the time about how important you are and what you have reached, to sell yourself,” she said.