No Man’s Land

No Man’s Land
Author:
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction
ASIN: B00K1HTFOY

It was a beautiful dream; as compelling and just as any in history – yet unattainable. Realizing it meant overcoming entrenched ideological and political divisions that had split a city and the world for half a century. Then it happened; overnight and without warning. And nothing would ever be as it was before.

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About the Book

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Set in the divided city of Berlin just before the revolutions of 1989, continuing through the unexpected fall of the Wall and German reunification, No Man’s Land chronicles events as experienced by Richard, an expatriate American working an unsatisfying yet profitable job selling software for a small US firm.

As the story unfolds, he meets an array of people on both sides of the Berlin Wall; among them are Katerina Weber, the only child of a funeral director hell-bent on living every moment to the fullest; Knut Heino, a theology student working toward priesthood in an effort to avoid a real job, (according to Knut, work is the consequence of original sin, therefore, he wanted nothing to do with it); and Klaus, a former East German boarder guard who went over the Wall and could never adjust to life in the West.

Stranded in West Berlin without the means to leave, Klaus asks Richard for a favor that requires an excursion to the eastern city. There he meets Traudi Franzke, an idealistic young nurse. The relationship that ensues, separated from reality by the notorious concrete border, exposes hopes long since betrayed but clung to nevertheless. It is a relationship that outlasts the Wall and the tumult of German reunification until Traudi’s life is destroyed by a secret past, completing a journey from an age of ideology to the End of History.

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About the Author
Michael Califra

Michael Califra lived and worked in Germany, mostly in Berlin, from 1986 to 1998 where he wrote the novel, "No Man's Land". When he first considered writing about the Berlin it was still divided. The challenge then was to render in fiction a situation more absurdly fictional than any he could imagine. When the Wall fell and Germany and Berlin were reunified, it soon became very clear that the city he knew would soon be erased, just as the Berlin of the Kaiser had been overtaken by Weimar Berlin, which had then been wiped away by Hitler's capital, which was then replaced by Cold War cities of East and West Berlin. Wanting to document the place he knew would soon dissolve into history was the motivation behind writing his novel.

The author has also executive produced feature films starring such Hollywood talent as Rosario Dawson, Cuba Gooding Jr., Paul Rudd and Winona Ryder. He is a graduate of New York University.

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