From standing up. A life in stories

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Helga Schubert’s mother explained to her daughter that she had achieved three heroic deeds in her life: she had not aborted her, she had taken her on the run during the Second World War and she had not shot her before the Russians invaded.

Helga Schubert tells her story in short episodes; it is both fiction and truth. As a war child, she grows up between homes and, like many others of her generation, experiences little protection from her parents, who are often absent or traumatized. As an adult, she is under surveillance by the Stasi for more than ten years and is almost fifty years old when she votes for her first free election. Above all, she writes the story of a reconciliation: with her mother, with a life full of opposition – and with herself.

Helga Schubert, born in Berlin in 1940, studied psychology at Humboldt University. She worked as a psychotherapist and freelance writer in the GDR and, as press spokeswoman for the Central Round Table, helped prepare the first free elections. After publishing numerous books, she withdrew from the literary public eye until she won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2020 with the story Vom Aufstehen.