The German novelist Martin Walser's No Man's Land was first published in English in 1989, the year the division of Germany collapsed. Its central character, Wolf Zieger, lives in the West and spies for the East. It's a testament to Walser's skill with characterization and his handling of the themes of identity that book retains its relevance even after the direct cause of the story's conflict has been removed. Walser puts a reader in mind of Max Frisch; he was also called by the New Republic the "closest thing the West Germans have to John Updike."
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