This book makes a major contribution to the current debate on globalization, and more precisely to the question of how the "traffic in culture" is practiced, rationalized and experienced by visual artists.

In this true story, the author describes his life growing up as a biracial boy and young man in the German Democratic Republic. Even though racism contradicted the communist ideology, the author found himself confronted with it on a daily basis. He lets the reader know how difficult it was for him to cope with this situation, and the high price he had to pay for his often aggressive and reactionary response. After a failed escape attempt to the West and a subsequent prison break, he felt the full brunt of East German law. Being locked up in the notorious Bautzen II prison, he learned the hard...