It is no coincidence that one of the protagonists of the election campaign in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt has been an old acquaintance for the citizens: the old Simson motorcycle, associated with the daily life of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The motorcycle, painted blue, the color of Alternative for Germany (AfD), is the vehicle with which the leader of the far-right party Ulrich Siegmund has ridden through election events in which, even, members of the AfD have sung the anthem of the GDR.

Although she was born in a small town in southwestern Germany after the Berlin Wall had already fallen, Charlotte Gneuss (Ludwigsburg, 1992) grew up listening to the stories her parents told her about their youth in Dresden during the GDR years. "Since they had been able to escape so early, they had no problem talking about it," she recalls. She made the reverse move: when she turned 18, she moved to Dresden to study social work, and from there she went to Leipzig, where she trained in creative writing. "Thanks to my grandmother, I became an avid reader from a young age. Perhaps it was inevitable that one day I would try to write," she says. The root of GitterseeHer first novel—now published in Catalan by Periscopio, translated by Carlota Gurt, and in Spanish by Acantilado, translated by Alberto Gordo—consists of three sentences that came to the author in quick succession, prompting her to expand the story over seven years. "Thorsten and David."