Dirk Kurbjuweit - Fear and the federal election

When German author and journalist Dirk Kurbjuweit, his wife and young family were stalked and terrorised by a downstairs neighbour his lawyer said she didn't think the law could help, but she would organise a gun for them. Kurbjuweit is the author of eight novels, one of which is Fear - a fictionalised account of this experience and the first of his books to be translated into English. He is also deputy editor in chief of German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel and has won several prizes for his journalism. The German federal election will be held on September 24 and Kurbjuweit recently wrote an opinion piece in which he said Martin Schulz's bid to become the country's next chancellor "fosters new hope for a liberal democracy in crisis".