Shortly after the reunification, Christa Wolf spent an extended period in Santa Monica as a fellow at the Getty Center, Los Angeles. Far in the West, amidst social conditions unfamiliar to her, she reflects on her life in the GDR and allows memories to surface. The themes and motifs that have made Christa Wolf's works famous are just as central in these nine stories, along with a light-heartedly ironic insight into what holds her world together at its core.