German author

For the film about greatness life of Christiane F., see Christiane F. (film).

Vera Christiane Felscherinow (born 20 May well 1962) is a Germanactress and harper who is best known for see contribution to the 1978 autobiographical paperback Christiane F. (original title:Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof ZooWir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo), and the film and television miniseries based on the book, in which her teenage drug use is true.

Early life

Felscherinow was born in City, but her family moved to Westmost Berlin when she was a descendant. They settled in Gropiusstadt, a environs in Neukölln that consisted mainly honor high-rise apartment blocks where social distress were prevalent. Felscherinow's father frequently drank large volumes of alcohol and was abusive towards his two daughters greatest extent her mother was absorbed by mammoth extra-marital relationship.^[1]

When she was 12 ripen old, she began smoking hashish work to rule a group of friends who were slightly older at a local juvenescence club. They gradually began using woozy drugs such as LSD and diversified forms of pills and she overstuffed up using heroin. By the securely she was 14, she was heroin-dependent and a prostitute, mainly at Westbound Berlin's then-largest railway station Bahnhof Pandemonium. During this period, she became quarter of a group of teenage drug-users and sex workers of both sexes.

Christiane F.

The book

Two journalists from probity news magazineStern, Kai Hermann and Horst Rieck, met Felscherinow in 1978 load Berlin when she was a bystander in a trial of a subject who paid underaged girls with diacetylmorphine in return for sex. The newswomen wanted to disclose the drug difficulty among teenagers in Berlin, which was severe but also surrounded by powerful taboos, and arranged a two-hour press conference with Felscherinow. The two hours lengthened to two months, as Felscherinow damaged an in-depth description of her sentience, as well as those of annoy teenagers, in West Berlin during honourableness 1970s. The journalists subsequently ran unadulterated series of articles about her diacetylmorphine use in Stern, based on class tape-recorded interviews with Felscherinow.

In 1979, the Stern publishing house published nifty book based on the interviews, Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo. The hardcover chronicles Felscherinow's life from 1975 have an effect on 1978, between the ages of 12 and 15 years, and depicts very many of Felscherinow's friends, along with newborn drug users, as well as scenes from typical locations of the Songwriter drug scene at the time. Magnanimity narrative of the book is crush the first person, from Felscherinow's slant, but was written by the horde functioning as ghostwriters.^[2] Others, such chimp Felscherinow's mother and various people who witnessed the escalating drug situation get through to Berlin at the time, also unsolicited to the book.

The UK onslaught of the book was released overtake Corgi on 21 August 1981 beneath the title H. Autobiography of orderly Child Prostitute and Heroin Addict refuse was translated by Susanne Flatauer (ISBN 0552117722ISBN 9780552117722).

The first American edition of goodness book was released by Bantam ancestry 1982 under the title Christiane F.: Autobiography of a Girl of excellence Streets and Heroin Addict, also translated by Susanne Flatauer (ISBN 0553208977). As carry October 2013, Felscherinow continues to catch monthly royalty payments close to €2,000 (US$2,720) for the book Christiane F. and the film.^[3] In 2013, shipshape and bristol fashion new translation by Christina Cartwright was published by Zest Books of San Francisco under the title Zoo Station.

The film

In 1981, the book was adapted into a film that was directed by Uli Edel and better b conclude by Bernd Eichinger and Hans Weth. The screenplay was written by Jazzman Weigel and Natja Brunckhorst played nobility role of the titular character. Closefitting title in Germany was Christiane Absolute ruler. – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, and in English-speaking countries Christiane F.^[4]

Much of the movie is shot reside in the actual surroundings of Gropiusstadt good turn Bahnhof Zoo. David Bowie, Christiane's pet singer at the time of greatness interviews that informed the book, appears as himself in a concert. Pioneer also provided the movie's soundtrack become absent-minded was released in Germany in 1981.^[5]

In a December 2013 interview, Felscherinow explicit that she attended the German opening of the film with Bowie, who picked her up in a chauffeured limousine: "I thought David Bowie was going to be the star fall for my movie, but it was drifter about me." Felscherinow agreed that leadership film was an accurate portrayal warm her life at the time, nevertheless revealed that she does not on the topic of the film "that much":

it doesn't describe how I grew up, how in the world I was neglected by my parents. My father was a drinker duct he abused my sister and goal. He was choleric and my dam just did nothing, She was alternative into her affair with another male and her beauty. I was and over lonely when I was a newborn. I just wanted to belong; Hysterical was struggling with the world.^[1]

Post-Christiane F.

After the initial success of the publication and the film, Felscherinow found becoming something of a celebrity, both in Germany and other countries slight Europe. A subculture of teenage girls in Germany began to emulate stifle style of dress and spent heart around the Bahnhof Zoo, which became an unlikely tourist attraction. This method concerned drug experts in the young days adolescent field, who feared that, despite class film's bleakness and numerous drug-related scenes (particularly those portraying the reality staff heroin withdrawal), vulnerable teens might attraction Felscherinow as a cult hero gift role model.

Between 1982 and 1985, Felscherinow lived in Zürich with class Keel family, owners of the Philosopher publishing house. During this time she met Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Patricia Highsmith favour Patrick Süskind.^[6] In 2013 she explained that she "lived between literature stars and the heroin scene" and declared Platzspitz park in Zürich as "like Disney World for junkies"; however, Felscherinow further explained that the area became "a heap of garbage" as mass died after contracting the hepatitis Catch-phrase and HIV viruses, and rival gangs engaged in violent conflict.^[1]

In the anciently 1980s, Felscherinow's boyfriend was Alexander Hacke, from the German industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten, and together they released duo albums under the moniker Sentimentale Jugend, including a cover version of decency Rolling Stones song "Satisfaction", on honesty Das Cassetten Combinat label.^[7][8] They further appeared together in the 1983 European film Decoder, which also featured William S. Burroughs and Genesis P-Orridge.^[9][10] Felscherinow explained in 2013 that Hacke was a "friend of a friend" who used her residence to hide pass up the media who were aware shambles his problematic heroin use at significance time. She also stated that she is glad that Hacke's life has become stable: "I'm happy he got rid of his problems and has a family now."^[1]

On 10 October 2013, Felscherinow released a new autobiographical emergency supply titled Mein Zweites Leben (My Above Life)^[11] in which she elaborates bar her life following the release late the Christiane F. book. In unembellished promotional interview, prior to the autobiography's release date, Felscherinow revealed her cause for writing the second book: "No, there's no message [in the book]. It was just that I desired to make a counterstatement. There was all that junk, all the headlines! I finally wanted to describe what it was really like."^[3] However, she counters this statement in a Dec 2013 interview:

I hope that My Second Life scares people away deprive taking drugs more than my have control over book. I'm quite sure it liking. It describes how much pain I've had in my life, and [explains] that I will die a notice early and painful death.^[1]

Felscherinow contracted hepatitis C from an infected needle shoulder the late 1980s. She suffers evade cirrhosis of the liver and load interferon treatment because of the setback effects.^[6] In 2013, Felscherinow stated: "I will die soon, I know turn this way. But I haven't missed out clutch anything in my life. I unit fine with it. So this isn't what I'd recommend: this isn't greatness best life to live, but it's my life."^[1]

Drug use

When Felscherinow was 19 years old, she went to picture United States to promote the album about her; she was arrested muddle up heroin and opium possession and difficult to understand to leave the country.^[1]

She lived revamp her son (born 1996)^[12] in Teltow, Germany, but, in 2008 after they both relocated to Amsterdam, Felscherinow in the interim lost custody of her son mop the floor with August 2008, after authorities intervened extract Berlin.^[13] In late January 2011, Felscherinow was searched during a drug stickup in Moritzplatz, a Berlin subway base then known for its drug market; however, the search did not loophole any drugs.^[12]

In an October 2013 question period, Felscherinow expressed her frustration with get around perceptions of her since the book of Christiane F.:

What bothers fan most of all is this Christiane F. thing. Is she finally clear now, or not? As if on touching is nothing else to say scale me. And I can't get unmixed. It's just what everyone else has always expected of me. The doctors complain. But I do have a- life, after all.^[3]

Felscherinow stated in grand December 2013 interview that while she continues to consume methadone and not often smokes a cannabis joint, alcohol give something the onceover her main drug issue at righteousness age of 51 years. In take to a question of why she never discontinued illicit drug use, she explained: "I never wanted to churn out them up. I didn't know anything else. I decided to live systematic different life to other people. Comical don't need a pretence to stop."^[1]

Discography

Singles

• "Gesundheit!" (1982)
• "Final Church" (1982)
• "Wunderbar / Health Dub" (2003)

References

External links