FINALLY THE BOOK I'VE WANTED FOR AGES CAME TODAY! Christiane F: Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo.
real name Christiane Felscherinow.
It is the story of a girl from a middle-class house who likes to sneak out to discos at night time. There among the bright lights she discovers heroin and life takes a downward slide. She finds herself leading a double life: going to school by day and sneaking out at night to Bahnhof Zoo (Berlin's equivalent of Kings Cross station) and prostituting herself for heroin money. And it takes her mother two years to realize what is wrong!
The book was a big bestseller in Germany. I heard it is (or was) a set text in German schools. It WAS translated into English, published by Transworld in the UK but is now out of print. I doubt it has ever gone out of print in German.
In the English-speaking world the film Christiane F (with soundtrack by David Bowie) is of course far more famous. What's remarkable (for a film) is that the on-screen Christiane and her boyfriend Detlef really do look like the real-life pair.
Not much is known about what became of the real Christiane F. She gave an interview in her early 20s (link below) ~ when she had just been busted for heroin possession again. I heard that she has died ...
This was Christiane Felscherinow towards the end:
Christiane F age 23 ~ interview
Amazon Review:
I borrowed this book from one of my German school-exchange partners & although had just taken my GCSE at the time, I found I could understand the vast majority of the book, as it was written by a teenager and therefore doesn't contain many complicated words!
I have tried to buy this book several times in the *cough* 13 years *cough* since I read it, but always found it was out of print. So when I found out a couple of years ago that this book had come back into print I just had to buy it.
Wir Kinder Vom Bahnhof Zoo really is one of the most powerful books I have ever read, if you are a parent of German speaking children I would thoroughly reccommend you give them this to read when they are about 14 or 15. I'm sure it will definately make them think twice about taking drugs!
Like all the best books I have ever read the 'characters' in the book really do leep out at you, you can just imagine being in 1970's Berlin alongside these teenagers.
I think that this book is so powerful that if it were ever translated into English (& why I ask hasn't it been already???) it should be taught in our schools.
Here's the Christiane F filmclip formerly on my sidebar:
Christiane F
("Wir Kinder vom Bahnhoff Zoo")
Berlin has long been a centre of "alternative" living, attracting the artistic and dejected. And of course heroin rushes into such a void:
You can see the film in its entirety on my random blog by clicking HERE.
I'm not sure scare tactics work on everyone. For one thing - many teens think they know it all - they believe they are invincible - they believe they are not weak like those others who succumb. They fool themselves about the real reasons they do things. They think they are having fun and therefore can't be hooked. Many kids hate to read - the film might be a better way to reach the majority.
ReplyDeleteGod at 23 she looks about 50 that would be enough to put me off the drugs and the sexwork.
ReplyDeleteI bought that book when it was first published in 1979. I still have it somewhere. It was a bestseller and maybe later they also recommended it in schools, but I have never heard of it. I never saw this picture either. Her real name is Felscherinow now 46. Today she still lives in Berlin and works in book binding. She has a son born in 1996. In 2008 after her partner left her because she had started to drink and take methadon and heroin and smoked a lot of shit. She then lived in Amsterdam and travelled often back to Berlin. Since the social child protection put her son in home because she started to neglect him and her partner left her, she has vanished. Her partner still tries to find her but without success so far. She never visited her little son either. This was published in "Bild" the german magazine End August 2008.
ReplyDeleteYou made me curious so I looked a little around on German internet !
JEANNIE: I had a real fascination with heroin, above all drugs, from the start... It was a forbidden fruit thing. I come from the Rave Generation where drugs became destigmatized for the masses. I remember people who couldn't really afford it sitting round snorting coke thinking they were clever. But heroin? No! I thought that hipocrisy and so rebelled against my own peers ... and look where it got me!
ReplyDeleteBAINO: No that last picture ... I think she was older than 23 surely!!!
GATTINA: thank you very much for that inforamtion. I would have got totally lost in the foreignness of it all. I don't know how foreign people survive in Britain. A foreign language is like looking at everything through a dirty window. However marvellous the view, you know it's not as good as it could be without that barrier in the way. Which I suppose is the great motivation of LEARNING the language ... But I don't get how did you learn such good English being in BELGUIM..??
That sounds an interesting book, Gleds.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds an interesting book, Gleds.
ReplyDeleteI think the book should be set text here too, who knows is may put at least a few off doing drugs and that has to be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteShe is not dead and that photo of her is not in her 20s. The book was not written by her but by two journalists that interviewed her at the time.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_F.
Though I agree the book/movie are great I think you should've read about the whole back story before writing an 'entry' without knowing the facts.
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