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PUNK ICON:Nina Hagen’s childhood was spent on a political knife-edge in East Germany. Her teenage years were suitably wild, and for almost 40 years she has been carving out a career as the queen of punk. Now, she insists she has found Jesus (via some LSD). DEREK SCALLY can’t put her memoirs down

NINA HAGEN IS such an original creation that, if she hadn’t already created herself, no one would think of inventing her. With a soaring voice, an unhinged gaze and an electric stage presence, Hagen has spent her 35-year career running the gamut from pop poppet to the mother of punk. More recently she has flirted with Hinduism and channelled Nazi-era divas. In her just-published memoirs, she recalls, among other events in her life, her expulsion as a teenager from her East German home, a UFO sighting off the coast of Malibu, and an encounter with Jesus during an LSD-fuelled near-death experience.