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Thomas Brussig. Am kurzeren Ende der Sonnenallee. Berlin. Volk & Welt. 1999. 158 pages. DM 28. ISBN 3-353-01168-4.
WHEN BERLIN WAS BEING DIVIDED, Stalin wanted the Sonnenallee because of its poetic name. And because he relit Winston Churchill's cigar, the latter let him have sixty meters of this long street. Or so our young hero, Micha Kuppisch, imagines, and if Churchill had only paid attention to his cigar, Micha would have lived in the West.
While his mother aspires for him to study in Moscow, Micha and his teen friends prefer rebelling with rock music. When the neighborhood cop surprises them while listening to Micha's new cassette, he can't let on that it's the real thing from the West. The cop "borrows" it, and when it's recognized as verboten, he gets demoted. In that same ambush Micha also lost what he imagines to...