‘The Short End of the Sonnenallee’ by Thomas Brussig    (1999) – 137 pages      Translated from the German by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson

“Sunny Avenue” might be a misnomer for this street, especially for the small part of the street which was assigned to the Russians and East Germany. The people there live next to the death strip where the armed guards will shoot on sight anyone attempting to cross over from East Berlin to West Berlin. But the teenagers on the street, being teenagers, go about living their lives anyhow. Contrary to all expectations, this is a humorous novella about boys and girls making the best of a bad situation.

Immediately after World War II, Germany and Berlin were divided up between the Russians and the Allies. According to Thomas Brussig in ‘The Short End of the Sonnenallee’, Truman, Stalin, and Churchill were negotiating the fate of Sonnenallee after World War II. Churchill’s cigar went out, Stalin relit Churchill’s cigar, and then the grateful Churchill gave Stalin and Russia a small part of Sonnenallee. This is the short end of the Sonnenallee which wound up behind the Iron Curtain.

The teenage boys on the short end of the Sonnenallee are obsessed with two things: teenage girls, especially Miriam, and rock music from the West. These teenagers will do just about anything, spend any amount of money, to get their hands on a Rolling Stones album which is one of the many items that are illegal.

When the wind blows Micha’s first love letter from Miriam into the death strip even before he has read it, he and a friend try to “fish” it out with no success.

Uncle Heinz visiting from the West, tries to smuggle things in for the family, but the things he tries to smuggle are things that are already legal anyhow.

Somehow the author Thomas Brussig winds up with a quite funny story under the worst of circumstances.

“I’m a painter, but what’s there to paint here? You only need one color – gray. You’ve only got one look on your face, and that’s being sick of it … What are you supposed to paint with bright colors? Man, it’s like they’re even clamping down on color.”

I doubt that the humor could have been sustained for an entire full novel’s length, but as a novella it works fine.

Grade:   A-