Kruso

Kruso is set on the island of Hiddensee in 1989, among the seasonal workers and dropouts who gathered there as East Germany was collapsing. It tells of the friendship between Edgar ’Ed’ Bendler, a student of German literature, and Alexander ’Kruso’ Krusowitsch, a kitchen worker regarded as an authority among the seasonal staff. Both have been marked by the loss of someone close.

Kruso develops a utopian idea of freedom that draws Ed in, and together they look after the ’castaways’, people who have given up on the GDR. Their bond is so strong that they almost fail to notice the state breaking apart around them.