Clemens Meyer

Leipzig East, the beginning of the nineties. Daniel, Mark, Rico, Pitbull, Paul and Walter fight for themselves. They dream about their own lives, and they grow up with fear, anger, hope and an irrepressible urge for freedom. The centerpiece of their life is the Premium Pilsener Brewery with its smell of fresh hops and malt and its promise of long nights full of booze.

And there are the police headquarters to the south-east, where the nightly excesses regularly end. They celebrate, smoke and drink, experiment with drugs and girls, intoxicate themselves with their own power, their potency, their megalomania. Until the offenses become more and more serious, as do the consequences. Walter slams a stolen car against a tree. Mark shoots himself to death with heroin. Rico stays behind bars for increasingly long periods of time. And Daniel, who appears to be the only one to pull out of it all, says, "There is no night in which I do not dream of all this, and every day the memories dance in my head, and I torment myself with the question of why all this has happened. Sure, we had a lot of fun back then, and yet in all we were doing there was a kind of lostness that I can hardly explain. "

Als wir träumten is a "saga of friendship, love and betrayal," the author explains - and a piece of Leipzig's urban history.

"A moving book ... a monument to youth ... a piece of magic." (Sten Nadolny)