The Wall In My Head

What fallen checkpoints have to do with a generation of artists.

Twenty years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall changed the course of world history as November 9, 1989, marked democracy’s most politically and socially consequential win. When the checkpoints between East and West Berlin burst open, two world that had been kept apart for nearly three decades finally came together, each with its unique tradition of art, ideology and cultural heritage.

Today, Words Without Borders, the international nonprofit working to promote international communication through translation of the world’s best writing, celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall with the release of The Wall in My Head: Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain — a gem of an anthology of fiction, essays, images, and original documents, tracing the evolution of this revolutionary spirit from its 1989 origins to the present day.

Unlike traditional historical accounts of that era, The Wall in My Head goes straight to the grittiest, rawest source — the generation of artists and writers who witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain first-hand. Shaped by this monumental event, their life and work offer profound memories, reflections and insight into that incredible era of frustration, optimism and epic change.

Through this incredible spectrum of stories, voices and accounts, The Wall in My Head paints a rich and powerful portrait of the event that made possible so much of what we take for granted today.

You can read about the project on the book’s blog and sample it with this free chapter [PDF].

The Wall in My Head is out on Amazon — who made the book possible with a charitable donation — today.

Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

Writing Without Words: Visualizing a Book Literature as a canvas, a book as a living organism, and rhythm as a texture -- an incredible visualization of text. ...
Photography Spotlight: Things The cultural anthropology of things, or what Hitler's head has to do with Barbie....
Vizthink: Pictorial Webster’s Beautiful restorations of Victorian engravings, in book, card and stamp form, by artist and bookbinder Johnny Carrera....
Reading The Red Book A cross between an illuminated manuscript, personal journal, and a tome of mini Buddhist mandalas, The Red Book provides a singular and extraordinary insight into one of the 20th century’s most celebrated minds. ...
Reclaiming Urban Landscape | Part 4 The most influential guerrilla and street art that liberates our urban landscape from the gray grip of blandness and makes a social statement in the process. ...

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 6:43 am in activism, art, culture and was tagged activism, art, books, culture, history, politics.