Anna Funder, the acclaimed author of Stasiland and Wifedom, has taken up a new role as professor of practice in creative writing at the University of Sydney. In a recent interview on campus, she reflected on her unconventional path to writing, the challenges of the craft, and the broader significance of her appointment in an era dominated by technology and political upheaval.
From Law to Literature: A Leap of Faith
Funder, who quit her career in international law in 1997 to write Stasiland, admitted she had never studied creative writing. “I clearly didn’t know what I was doing. But I did have an honours degree in English literature, and I had been reading my entire life. I always knew that I was going to write,” she said. Her award-winning book, published in 2002, explored the aftermath of East Germany’s surveillance state and won the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction.
The Lure of Berlin and Stories of Resistance
The idea for Stasiland began when Funder was a 20-year-old exchange student in West Berlin. She became fascinated by how citizens could turn on each other under the Stasi regime, and how some individuals refused to comply. “They were living under a bell jar in an enclosed society, under this male tyranny of the Stasi, and they still said no,” she said of three women who inspired the book. “I just think to do that is incredible.”
Writing as a Craft in the Age of AI
Funder views her appointment as a vote of confidence in the humanities. “The university putting me in here is a vote of confidence in the humanities in an age of technocrats, AI, the rise of the right, book burnings and bannings,” she said. She has been vocal about defending authors against AI, testifying at a Senate inquiry in September. An Instagram video of her testimony garnered a comment from Sharon Stone, who called Funder a “bad ass.”
A Family Legacy of Social Justice
Funder attributes her sense of social justice to her parents: a psychologist mother who shaped policies on child support and an endocrinologist father. “They had this enormous sense of working professionally and personally for two things: searching for truth, firstly, and the purpose of that was social justice – making things better,” she said. However, she sees her work as exploring what it means to be human rather than being driven by social justice.
Current Projects and Future Plans
Funder is working on a contemporary novel that is “quite personal.” She said, “I like to write from a place of admiration. So even if the person on the page becomes a character and is not quite like the person in real life, that original sense of awe about who they were or what they did or how they behaved in a certain situation is a very happy place for me to write from.” Funder is touring Australian capital cities in July and August 2026.
