Silent close no. 6

Monika Maron was born in wartime Berlin in 1941 to an anti-fascist mother of Polish Jewish ancestry and a German father. Her step-father was the first Minister of the Interior of the new East German state, having been chief of police. Following her early upbringing in a Communist family, Maron joined the Party in 1965, thinking to oppose "anti-democratic" tendencies from within the Party. She soon understood, however, that "you cannot close up a people in a wall." She left the Party and worked in television, as a drama school teacher, and for six years as a journalist. Silent Close No. 6 concerns one of the high Communist rulers, whose self-explanations are never allowed to justify his past actions. The novel is an important critique of Germany's recent past by one of the country's leading intellectuals.