Siblings by Brigitte Reimann review: sex, the Stasi and me

The writer Brigitte Reimann was unusual for a young woman living in the German Democratic Republic in the 1950s and 1960s. She wore bright lipstick, drank too much and had “adulterous escapades” with too many men, all of which were recorded in her candid diaries. She was spirited and uninhibited, a communist hot mess who loved romantic intrigues — “I can’t live without the euphoric rush of new love”, she wrote — marrying four times before her death from cancer at the age of 39. She was also an ardent supporter of the socialist project — for some years working in a coalmine — and yet had regular run-ins with the Stasi (whom she privately called “boneheaded zealots”) for defending authors who were being persecuted