In one of the short prose pieces in Reiner Kunze’s book “The Wonderful Years”, a schoolgirl would put up with a visual impairment in order to be able to wear wire-rimmed glasses. But for the class teacher, this is “imperialist fashion influence, decadence”. As proof, he presents photos from a western magazine, “long-haired males wearing wire-rimmed glasses”. There are counter-images in the schoolgirl’s family album. “Her great-grandfather wore wire-rimmed glasses. He was a miner. Her grandfather wore wire-rimmed glasses. He was a miner. She’d flip through the photos to prove it.”
Reiner Kunze, poet and dissident in the GDR, is 90 years old – culture
