My Story
Hi, I’m A.G.R. Goff — writer of psychological thrillers.
I grew up in Leipzig/East Germany before the Berlin wall came down. There wasn’t much television, no video games, no sense of constant distraction, so I read a lot. Books not only gave me something to do, but they were also where I lived.
Luxuries existed, but they didn’t belong to everyday life. So, imagination filled the gaps. Stories were a way of making sense of the world and of leaving it, temporarily, when needed. Distractions came from elsewhere, often from West Germany. Chocolate, clothing, small objects that felt almost unreal. They arrived like artefacts from another system, another rhythm of living. That separation between what was familiar and what was “outside” stayed with me.
The first big fundamental shift in my life came when the Berlin Wall was torn down. It is impossible to overstate how completely it changed everything.
Life in eastern Germany did not simply improve or shift; it was dismantled and rebuilt in real time. The shock was cultural, emotional, systemic. Families lost jobs, identities, certainties. Structures that had framed daily life vanished almost overnight. Every small detail of life changed.
At the same time, this collapse was presented to the outside world as a triumph, an unquestionable good. And even though overall the collapse of communism was a positive thing and still is, there was a deep disconnect between the narrative and the lived reality. What was framed as liberation often felt like betrayal. Not just politically, but personally.
People in East Germany were expected to be grateful whilst absorbing loss, disorientation, and shame. They felt like nothing they had done up to this point had had any positive effect. Even our Saxon accent was framed as something to be ashamed of. That fracture between public story and private experience is something I still recognise immediately, and it underpins much of my writing.
Later, I met the man who would become my husband and moved to the UK, which brought another upheaval. Another culture shock. I adapted. I became used to speaking another language and adopting it as my own. I was settled and functioning well within a system very different from the one I’d grown up in.
Then came another major rupture: moving again, this time to South Africa. It was meant to be a new chapter, a new life. Instead, it led to a profound betrayal. We were swindled out of our live savings. Financial hardship followed. Illness and serious accidents befell my beloved family members. Stability, once assumed, disappeared. During this period, writing became a coping mechanism. A way to process events that were otherwise too large, too chaotic, too unfair to hold directly.
In 2021, my husband died from Covid. It was another loss, another ending that did not resolve neatly. Writing supported me again — not by offering comfort or resolution, but by allowing me to keep thinking, questioning, structuring meaning where there was none.
My writing allows me to work directly with these themes. Betrayal. Unreliable appearances. Power dynamics. Sudden shifts. The moment when a life divides into “before” and “after.” My work repeatedly returns to endings and beginnings, to the understanding that life does not follow narrative logic. Fairy tale endings are comforting, but they are not reflective of real experience. What is real is adaptability. Resilience. The capacity to survive profound upheaval and continue living, even when the outcome is not what was hoped for.