Distant Signs is an intimate portrait of two families spanning three
generations amidst turbulent political change, behind and beyond the
Berlin Wall.
In 1960s East Germany, Margret, a professor's daughter from the city,
meets and marries Hans, from a small village in Thuringia. The couple
struggle to contend with their different backgrounds, and the emotional
scars they bear from childhood in the aftermath of war. As East German
history gradually unravels, with collision of the personal and
political, their two families' hidden truths are quietly revealed. An
exquisitely written novel with strongly etched characters that stay with
you long after the book is finished and an authentic portrayal of family
life behind the iron curtain based on personal experience of the author
who is East German and was 16 years old at the fall of the Berlin Wall.