Ronald M. Schernikau

Even before he graduated from high school at Lehrter Gymnasium, his short novel Kleinstadtnovelle was published by Rotbuch Verlag in 1980.

The book, which was about coming out as gay in a small town, was a remarkable debut, and the first edition had to be reprinted just a few days after its release.

The same year, Schernikau moved to West Berlin, where he joined the Socialist Unity Party of West Berlin (SEW) and enrolled in German, philosophy and psychology at Freie Universität.

During this time, Schernikau wrote for various left-wing publications on topics such as the baking industry and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

[1] There he wrote his book die tage in l. darüber, dass die ddr und die brd sich niemals verständigen können, geschweige mittels ihrer literatur ["The days in L.: On the fact that East and West Germany can never communicate, least of all through their literature"], which discussed how East and West Germans perceived each other.