Wonderful, quirky, biting, and rich in punchlines. - Der Tagesspiegel. Before Thomas Brussig celebrated overwhelming successes with "Helden wie wir" and "Sonnenallee," his first novel "Wasserfarben" was published under a pseudonym: a book about growing up, in which the big questions of meaning are posed with the same casual irony that readers will recognize from his later works. "If I had a second life, I would translate Brussig's novels into English. Just to show doubtful Americans how incredibly funny German literature can be." - Jonathan Franzen. This is exactly the book he felt was missing when he was around twenty, which is why he had to write it himself, says Thomas Brussig about his first novel "Wasserfarben." The story of a youth in the GDR during the 1980s is told with a warmer, quieter irony than some of his later books.