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Represented By: Sharmaine Lovegrove
She studied History and Journalism in Berlin and Istanbul and holds an MA from Freie Universität Berlin. Her work explores how women’s lives can reframe cultural memory and has sparked major debates — from bringing the #MeToo conversation into the German art world to reshaping discussions around East German identity. Her narrative non-fiction Three Women Who Dreamed of Socialism became a SPIEGEL bestseller, and she recently published her first novel with Hanser Berlin. She writes regularly for DIE ZEIT and The Guardian, and works across print, film, and television. She lives between Berlin and Istanbul.
Photo credit: Erdem Varol
Represented By: Sharmaine Lovegrove
She studied History and Journalism in Berlin and Istanbul and holds an MA from Freie Universität Berlin. Her work explores how women’s lives can reframe cultural memory and has sparked major debates — from bringing the #MeToo conversation into the German art world to reshaping discussions around East German identity. Her narrative non-fiction Three Women Who Dreamed of Socialism became a SPIEGEL bestseller, and she recently published her first novel with Hanser Berlin. She writes regularly for DIE ZEIT and The Guardian, and works across print, film, and television. She lives between Berlin and Istanbul.
Photo credit: Erdem Varol
Author: Carolin Würfel
Genres: Memoir/ Cultural History
AGAINST THE FAIRY TALES is a clear-eyed, deeply personal work of narrative non-fiction about unlearning belief, confronting contradiction, and rebuilding a sense of self between cultures.
Born in East Germany, in a country that no longer exists, Carolin Würfel traces a life shaped by reunification, inherited ideology, and the pressure to belong. Moving from Leipzig and Berlin to Istanbul, she examines how political systems, cultural myths, and feminist ideals quietly structure intimate choices around work, love, identity, and self-worth.
Blending memoir with social and cultural history, the book explores disillusionment, the experience of being marked as “other,” and the unsettling realisation that the promises of progress, equality, and freedom are often narratives rather than guarantees.
For readers of Deborah Levy, Sheila Heti, and Olivia Laing, who value memoir shaped by cultural insight and psychological acuity.