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Katja Oskamp: Marzahn, Mon Amour (Paperback, 2022, Peirene Press, Limited) 4 stars

Portrait gallery among the plattenbau

4 stars

Marzahn. When I lived in Berlin, the place was viewed as fairly miserable by my young, hipster and/or rich-in-cultural-capital friends. Somewhere where you (i.e. foreigner) had to be careful not to be beaten up by skinheads, as well. Of course, it turns out is just another place where normal people live. Mostly people who got a flat in the new developments towards the end of the DDR time, and are now aging in the Marzahn microcosmos. Or maybe that's just the subset of Marzahn who visit the chiropodist, who happens to be a (former?) writer who has a special talent for depicting her patients with tact, no matter how annoying, quirky or tragic they are.