The Berlin Crossing

By Kevin Brophy

BRANDENBURG 1993: The Berlin Wall is down, the country is reunified and thirty-year-old school teacher Michael Ritter feels his life is falling apart.

His wife has thrown him out, his new West German headmaster has fired him for being a socialist former Party member, and he is still clinging on to the wreckage of the state that shaped him. Disenfranchised and disenchanted, Michael heads home to care for his terminally ill mother.

Before she dies, she urges him to seek out an evangelical priest, Pastor Bruck, who is the only one who knows the truth about his father. When Michael eventually tracks him down, he is taken on a journey of dark discoveries, one which will shatter his foundations, but ultimately bring him hope to rebuild them.

Haunting and redemptive, The Berlin Crossing is a compelling, unique portrayal of one man’s struggle to understand his past, uncovering a powerful story of love and survival in sixties Stasi East Germany.

Kevin Brophy has told the story of his childhood in the Army Barracks in Galway, Ireland, in the memoir Walking the Line. In 2009 he was Writer-in-Residence to the city of Langenfeld (NRW) in Germany. He has taught in England, Ireland, Poland and Germany.