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Winner of the 2013 Virginia PrizeAs heard on BBC Radio 4's Book at BedtimeThe year is 1985. East Germany is in the grip of communism. Magda, a brilliant but disillusioned young linguist, is desperate to flee to the West. When a black market deal brings her into contact with Robert, a Scottish research student at Leipzig University, she conceives a plan to escape. Robert stumbles into a complex world of shifting half-truths - one that will undo them both. More than a decade later, Robert returns to post-communist Leipzig in search of answers. Can he track Magda down? And will the past give up its secrets?Fiona Rintoul is a writer, journalist and translator. While studying German at St Andrews University in the 1980s, she was an exchange student at Leipzig University.