Ostkind by Arne Kohlweyer

Set in Berlin during the years following the reunification of Germany, Ostkind the debut novel by screenwriter and film director Arne Kohlweyer is a written as a diary of a 9 to 10 yo young boy Marko Wedekind. 

As the author himself, he grows up in the Hohenschönhauser part of Berlin - where once was located a Stasi prison and a large garden colony. His mother was during the GDR times a philosopher, his father a Marxist-Leninist teacher, turned into a messy taxi driver.

From his school bench, he is noticing the new colleagues whose families relocate from the West, fell in love with some, and learns to deal with the sudden sickness of his mother and the lies the adults say to ´protect´ him. 

Marko has humour and observes the world with the eagerness of a detective. His voice is well defined and relatable - as the mother of a young boy almost the same age, I may recognize the temptations and interests in his voice.

It is a relatively short book, easy to read, using a lot of typical vocabulary for this age and part of Berlin. I would rather see this book as a comic or even as a film. 

Although it does not have a new take on growing up during those times, it adds qualitatively to the bibliography of books set during the post-Unification years. Reading Ostkind was not a waste of time, but rather an intermezzo between some dense reading I am planning for the weekend.

Rating: 3 stars