Sonja Gerstner (Berlin, 1952 – 1971) was an East German artist and writer from one of the country's elite families. At seventeen she showed the first signs of a psychotic illness. Her stays in closed psychiatric wards, where she received insulin shock therapy and electroconvulsive therapy, deepened her sense of helplessness and isolation. After her release in December 1970 she lived alone, struggling with a sense of inadequacy, and took her own life on 8 March 1971.
Beyond poems, songs and a diary, she painted and drew in a surrealist and expressionist style. Most of her paintings and drawings are now on long-term loan to the Prinzhorn Collection at Heidelberg University.
After her death, her mother, the journalist Sibylle Boden-Gerstner, published the book "Flucht in die Wolken" ("Escape into the Clouds") in 1981 under the pseudonym Sibylle Muthesius, with full-colour reproductions of her daughter's images. It circulated widely in East Germany, was translated into eight languages and appeared in West Germany the following year. Its critical account of psychiatric care, including the use of "isolation bunkers", had a lasting impact.