German Literature

[Stewart]

Aside from names like Grass, Hesse, Mann, and Goethe I've never really noticed German Literature all that much. But I've recently noticed - or become tuned to - a number of German titles appearing in translation of late.

Now I'm seeing names like Irmgard Keun and Wolfgang Koeppen coming out of my German fog. And recently Ernst J?nger's The Glass Bees and Storm Of Steel has come to my attention.

Jenny Erpenbeck didn't impress me all that much with The Book Of Words and Sa?a Stani?ić's How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone, due out next month, wasn't engaging enough to finish.

And based on an observation today (http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/200805b.htm#et7) on the Literary Saloon, seven from the German Book Prize's 2006's shortlist of twenty-one titles are to be published in English translation this year, it would seem that German literature is growing in interest.

So, old and new, what German Literature have you read? What are the must reads? What ones could we do without?

[Heteronym]

I'd suggest two names:

Alfred D?blin, author of Berlin Alexanderplatz, the story of Franz Biberkopf, a one-armed man recently out of prison trying to make a living in 1920's Berlin away from the crime that used to rule his life.

Heinrich B?ll, author of The Lost Honor of Katherina Blum, a fascinating analysis of the limits of news media in intruding on peoples' lives and their responsability to the truth, and what happens when they shirk that responsability. A very relevant novel for our times.

D?blin wrote right before Hitler took over, and B?ll afterwards, so they offer two very interesting views of German history.

[Patroclus]

A few months ago I read "The Glass Bead Game" by H. Hesse and I was disappointed with the novel. Now I've been trying to read "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann. I have been waiting for new German writers without anything to do with WWII. I mean what's going on in the world of modern Germany. I'm pretty sure there are a few of them published in Germany but are not know to the rest of the world.

[LizzySiddal]

My top five German reads (with links to my blog, if applicable).

1) Effi Briest (http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/effi-briest-theodor-fontane/)- Theodor Fontane *****
The German Madame Bovary - except that Effi's problems are not self-inflicted. Nor is she a selfish madam.

2) The Dykemaster - Theodor Storm (http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/category/storm-theodor/) *****
Actually make that any novella by Theodor Storm - they're all brilliant.

3) Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann *****
The fall and fall of a German dynasty. Quite fascinating.

4) Measuring the World (http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/measuring-the-world-daniel-kehlmann/)- Daniel Kehlmann ****0
Shortlisted for this year's International Foreign Fiction prize, an hilarious account of the madness in the lives of 2 C18th Germany geniuses.

5) The Great Bagarozy - Helmut Krausser ****0
A modern reworking of the Faust legend. Black comedy.

Regrettably no women. I need to do something about that. My current read is by a German authoress but it won't be a favourite. And while I enjoyed Doris Doerrie's "Where do we go from here?", it's not great.

Who are the great German authoresses?

[Sybarite]

I would heartily recommend Erich K?stner's Fabian.

Very much a novel for grown-ups from the author of Emil und die Detektive, it's set in decadent Weimar Berlin and is particularly interesting for anyone's who's read Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin.

[Eric]

There is a very good and informative German cultural website in English called Sign and Sight:

http://www.signandsight.com/

They categorise literature in various ways (by author; by country; etc.).

The "From the Feuilletons" rubric means a review of various cultural pages, as the German (sic!) word Feuilleton means Arts Page.

While it's easier to find things about older German literature in all sorts of websites, this one covers some things occurring now.

***

I'm glad Lizzie mentioned Storm and Fontane. Both are authors I first began to get interested in by reading essays by G?nter de Bruyn, an East German author living in the March of Brandenburg. I bought a small boxed set of Fontane second hand a couple of months ago, including "Effie Briest", but haven't got round to reading anything at all by this author.

[Eric]

I've found another website dealing with German literature. I don't know whether it's been mentioned yet:

http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/

[Stewart]

I don't know whether it's been mentioned yet
Sort of. Katy mentioned it (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1778&postcount=57) when she was introducing herself. It's a good blog, especially because it focuses on one such literature.

[Eric]

That's right, Stewart. I knew that it had been mentioned before, but couldn't find where.

[Katy]

Yup, that's me. I do love those German books. But I tend to read a lot of books that haven't (yet) been translated, so the blog might get rather obscure at times.

I can't say I have much to contribute to this thread. Despite my burning interest in German books, I find it hard to categorise literature. At the moment all I can say to Lizzie is: there are a lot of excellent women writers who are often ignored in (English) translation and academia.

I posted a short list of contemporary women available in translation on the blog:

http://lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com/2008/03/nonplussed-by-men-in-translation.html

[LizzySiddal]

Thanks for the list, Katy even if I'm having problems connecting with the female German voice.

I didn't like The Artificial Silk Girl (http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/the-artificial-silk-girl-irmgard-keun/). I gave up on Menasse's Vienna after only 40 pages. I did enjoy Doerrie's Where do we go from here?

Katherina Hacker's The Have-Nots is the next on the list.

[Mirabell]

My top five German reads (with links to my blog, if applicable).

1) Effi Briest (http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/effi-briest-theodor-fontane/)- Theodor Fontane *****
The German Madame Bovary - except that Effi's problems are not self-inflicted. Nor is she a selfish madam.

2) The Dykemaster - Theodor Storm (http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/category/storm-theodor/) *****
Actually make that any novella by Theodor Storm - they're all brilliant.

3) Buddenbrooks - Thomas Mann *****
The fall and fall of a German dynasty. Quite fascinating.

4) Measuring the World (http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/measuring-the-world-daniel-kehlmann/)- Daniel Kehlmann ****0
Shortlisted for this year's International Foreign Fiction prize, an hilarious account of the madness in the lives of 2 C18th Germany geniuses.

5) The Great Bagarozy - Helmut Krausser ****0
A modern reworking of the Faust legend. Black comedy.

Regrettably no women. I need to do something about that. My current read is by a German authoress but it won't be a favourite. And while I enjoyed Doris Doerrie's "Where do we go from here?", it's not great.

Who are the great German authoresses?


ugh what a cabinet of horrors. I hate Fontane, am bored my Storm, hate Krausser, am bored by Kehlmann but, hey!, you managed to list the only good Mann novel. ;)

Great female German (inkl. Austrian) writers are, for instance, Irmtraud Morgner, Ingeborg Bachmann, Christa Wolf, Friederike Mayr?cker, Brigitte Reimann, Brigitte Kronauer

[Eric]

Mirabell, could you expand a little as to what it is about Fontane that you hate, and about Storm that bores you? I've rather fancied reading Fontane since I read an excellent essay by G?nter de Bruyn about him, about the March of Brandenburg, and Fontane's work. And Mann only wrote one good novel, I hear. I rather like the one set in the tuberculosis sanatorium with a Russian nympho who slams doors, plus a load of philosophers. Rather erudite stuff by someone with a sense of humour, I feel.

Personally, I don't segregate authors by gender. I leave it to the Orange to do that. I read what takes my fancy, whether written by a man or a woman.

[Mirabell]

Gender, hm. Funny that at the time when Fontane became famous there were several very successful female writers, every bit as successful and as good and sometimes even better as/than Fontane (yes I'm glossing over stuff here but nevermind) and these days, not only is Fontane the only one continuously in print, he has become a canonized classic and thus, a sort of benchmark by which to judge the epoch's writers and if you take tight-arsed Fontane's style as a benchmark several of the female writers, who were (those whom I've read anyway) better, seem to fall short. So much for yr bitching about the Orange Prize. Things like that were important and, sometimes, are still. Not that I think institutions like the Orange prize (at least in the way they function these days) are a solution to this.

Storm...I will refrain from making a statement on Storm, because I have chanced upon a two-volume collected works (selected?) and am seriously considering a reread. When I read him, I came from a reading tradition that rejected the likes of Storm, Stifter and even Keller as sentimental, reactionary and (too) simplistic.

I have rediscovered Keller and parts of Stifter, so...

[Mirabell]

Shit. I fail to remember my favorite writer among the female writers I mentioned in my early post and I can't find her on my shelves, which happens, sometimes. Sorry.

One of the writers is Gabriele Reuter, but she is not who I meant, Reuter wrote her (fantastic) novels later than Fontane, her masterpiece was published a few years (5?) before he died.

[Bjorn]

Mirabell - do you have any opinion of Juli Zeh? I read her Spieltrieb, which I thought was excellent, and I've been thinking of picking up Adler und Engel but having read a couple of negative reviews, I'm wondering if it's worth the effort...?

I keep meaning to delve further into contemporary German fiction, but for some reason it doesn't get translated very often and my German isn't quite up to reading them in the original. For instance, looking at the authors Mirabell lists above, only Bachmann and Wolf seem to be widely translated. I recently read a collection of short stories by various German writers, and was quite impressed by contributions from e.g. Tanja D?cker, Ter?zia Mora, Katharina Hacker and Katja Lange-M?ller, but when it comes to finding something more of theirs...

[Mirabell]

I dunno. I'm very slow with German contemp
esp young German writers
so many bad experiences
everytime I try someone who people say is "really good"
I am usually horrified that a publisher would even consider publishing it
with a few notable exceptions. Ilja Trojanow is a good and promising writer. If you asked me who of the present generation of young German writers will make the canon, Trojanow's certainly a good candidate.

Fuckin literary prizes.

I read Judith Herrmanns - recoiled
tried Zsusa Bank - same thing
Thomas Lehr? Puh-leeze.
and so on.

So I've become wary. Haven't tried Juli Zeh yet. Her latest novel is apparently informed by her reading of philosphy and in every single interview these days she tries to explain her reading of Wittgenstein and others and fails miserably, demonstrating a stupendous inability to understand basic philosophical arguments.

Doesn't mean she's a bad writer. Looked through Spieltrieb in a bookshop this morning and was pleasantly surprised at the lack of embarrassing prose.

I think you can spend the time more profitably with dead writers than with the living.

[Mirabell]

Now I'm seeing names like Irmgard Keun and Wolfgang Koeppen coming out of my German fog. And recently Ernst J?nger's The Glass Bees and Storm Of Steel has come to my attention.


Keun is good and Koeppen is, as I put it elsewhere, fucking amazing. His three post-WWII novels are among the best post WWII lit written by a German. They are also all translated and quite short so you don't have the Jahnn/D?blin excuse.

[LizzySiddal]

Thanks everyone for all the female names!

I now have Katherina Hacker's "The Have-Nots" and Christa Wolff's "Medusa".

I always find it amazing that in a 4-year German literature degree course (1977-1981) I did not read one work written by a female. So, Mirabell, if you do remember those C19th authoresses, please post again!

[LizzySiddal]

P.S Mirabell, what do you think of Jenny Erpenbeck?

[Mirabell]

Thanks everyone for all the female names!

I now have Katherina Hacker's "The Have-Nots" and Christa Wolff's "Medusa".

I always find it amazing that in a 4-year German literature degree course (1977-1981) I did not read one work written by a female. So, Mirabell, if you do remember those C19th authoresses, please post again!

I have that Hacker book, too, haven't read it yet though. Should I? Tell me. I am somewhat suspicious of Germans who write about America and/or London. There's another recent novel set in America that had good reviews, but for the love of God I can't come up with title or author. Was a man, though.

I am coming to the conclusion that I had the texts in a reader in a seminar on literary evaluation, so I am hunting for old readers now. I stand by my Reuters recommendation though. If its just wimmin yr after, do take a look at Annette von Droste-H?lshoff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annette_von_Droste-H%C3%BClshoff), an important German writer and one of the very few women who made the canon. There's also the amazing poet Karoline von G?nderrode, who narrowly missed the canon, because the sausage fest that is the Romantic canon had no room for her. Also, there's Rahel Varnhagen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahel_Varnhagen)

I owe Christa Wolf for introducing me to Karoline and Arendt for introducing me to Varnhagen.

[nnyhav]

Just stumbled on this: first woman credited with writing in Western vernacular: Woofing and Weeping with Animals in Ava's Das J?ngste Gericht (http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2008/06/woofing-and-weeping-with-animals-in.html) (now available in bilingual edition!)

[Mirabell]

Just stumbled on this: first woman credited with writing in Western vernacular: Woofing and Weeping with Animals in Ava's Das J?ngste Gericht (http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com/2008/06/woofing-and-weeping-with-animals-in.html) (now available in bilingual edition!)

First German poetess, according to wikipedia (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ava_von_G%C3%B6ttweig). Thanks. I've never heard of her. Chuffed.

[Katy]

Re: LS's four years without women writers - I studied German a bit later, 1992-96, and a few students had obviously pushed for women writers before us. So we got to read Christa Wolf and an anthology of Swiss women. And that was it for the token females. Change seems to come slowly in academia.

Luckily, I spent a year in the former East Berlin in between, where I just signed up for every course going with the word "Frauen" in the title. So I read lots and lots of Anna Seghers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Seghers), who I still find an excellent writer with some toenail-curling excursions into Cold War-style political correctness (stories about tractor-drivers seeing the socialist light, etc.). Plus all sorts of other post-war women writers whose names I've forgotten - who aren't, of course, available in English, apart from Nelly Sachs (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1966/sachs-autobio.html).

[Katy]

I dunno. I'm very slow with German contemp
esp young German writers
so many bad experiences
everytime I try someone who people say is "really good"
I am usually horrified that a publisher would even consider publishing it
with a few notable exceptions. Ilja Trojanow is a good and promising writer. If you asked me who of the present generation of young German writers will make the canon, Trojanow's certainly a good candidate.

Fuckin literary prizes.

I read Judith Herrmanns - recoiled
tried Zsusa Bank - same thing
Thomas Lehr? Puh-leeze.
and so on.

(...)

I think you can spend the time more profitably with dead writers than with the living.

Mirabell, I have to disagree with your last statement here. I'm a huge fan of Clemens Meyer (http://www.signandsight.com/features/823.html), a self-styled bad boy who basically writes excellent Hemingway-inspired short stories. Plus I've just discovered Karen Duve (http://www.bloomsbury.com/authors/microsite.asp?id=406&section=1) but have only read her latest book, and I like what little I've read by Juli Zeh. Terribly popular in Eastern Europe, by the way.

Other contemporary writers I admire are Friedrich Christian Delius (http://www.litrix.de/autoren/autor/delius/enindex.htm) and Christoph Hein (http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5826). I've read some G?nter DeBruyn and it didn't get my pot boiling, but I imagine you might well like him, Eric. I believe there's a translation of one of his books going on right now for the US market. I did enjoy the winner of last year's "German Booker", Julia Franck's Lady Midday (http://www.signandsight.com/features/1537.html). It won't change the world but it's a rollicking good read and should be available in English any day now, if it isn't already. I also like Franck's earlier short stories, which are often slightly twisted and hard to get behind, although deceptively simple.

We could probably argue for weeks about the ups and downs of literary prizes. What the Deutscher Buchpreis does, though, is highlight books written in German, which foreign publishers can then pick up on very easily. And that seems to be working. Whether they're the best books being written at any given moment will always be contentious. I'm just glad the award is raising international awareness of writing in German at all.

But I DO agree with you, Mirabell, on Judith Herrman, Zsusza Bank and Thomas Lehr. All very sleep-inducing. Oh, and Trojanow - what a talent!

[Mirabell]

I have read only Duve's Regenroman, which I found dull, boring.
Haven't read a line of Clemens Meyer, but I second that FC Delius recommendation.
Hein can be nice, but not always or most of the time, IMO. Willenbrock, for instance, did absolutely not work for me. Julia Franck.

I think I read a portion of her Lagerfeuer book, that was her, wasn't it? But I'll be damned if I remember anything...

Foreign publishers should translate the B?chnerpreis winners, that's one prize that has over 70% of great writers winning it, a rare thing, IMO.

[Eric]

Mirabell, you seem a little negative with regard to German literature, for instance:



I hate Fontane, am bored my Storm, hate Krausser, am bored by Kehlmann...

...tight-arsed Fontane's style

When I read [Storm], I came from a reading tradition that rejected the likes of Storm, Stifter and even Keller as sentimental, reactionary and (too) simplistic.

I read Judith Herrmanns - recoiled
tried Zsusa Bank - same thing
Thomas Lehr? Puh-leeze.
and so on.

I have read only Duve's Regenroman, which I found dull, boring.


If they're not bad, they're:
fuckin' amazing. Could we perhaps have more analysis? Maybe you should develop an instinct which allows you to intuit that a book is useless, before buying it.

[Mirabell]

I have considered writing a longer reply on the boring thing, but it felt very...dunno. "Boring" is hard to attach to any special part of the text. Boring isn't bad. It#s just not very interesting.

Zsusa Bank has a very newspapery style, dull, functional, yet not analytical. Style-wise, her debut novel feels like a huge first draft. As for content...it's clearly written to impress, to squeeze feelings from her readers. The whole thing doesn't cohere nor was it interesting enough to look at her second book.

Judith Hermanns is an awful stylist. A very, very bad writer, as far as style is concerned. I am an aesthete, and more so in German, where her sloppy style means I get abdominal pains from reading her stories.

Fontane is condescending, stylistically uninteresting and a real drag to read. B?rgerlicher Realismus is, on top of that, one of my least favorite. I fail to see whence his fame comes, really.

I said something on Storm.

I have read only one novel by Lehr, which is apparently his most important work to date, Nabokovs Katze. This, a f?ted piece of crap, is nothing more than a novel about a boy growing up, told in a straightforward manner, filled with bad sex scenes, written in a boring/dull style, just dragging on and on and on. Starting with the sex scenes it pushes many right buttons for middle-of-the-road male critics who, from hearing them talk, feel all adventurous and giddy when they finish that book. The age?

[Mirabell]

pfff. Negative attitude. If you didn't list all that crap, I wouldn't be so scornful. I love German lit.

Some of my favorite German writers (GDR incl.), taken nationalistically, as Erik likes it:

Heiner M?ller (poems, plays, interviews)
Heinrich von Kleist (plays)
Heinrich Heine (poems)
H?lderlin (poems, prose)
Inge M?ller (poems, prose)
Alfred D?blin (Novels, stories)
Gerhard Hauptmann (plays, prose)
Irmtraud Morgner (novels)
Friedrich Schiller (plays; poems)
some of Heinrich B?ll
Brigitte Reimann (novels)
Wilhelm Raabe (novels)
Rudolph Borchardt (if we can count him as German)
Volker Braun (poems, novellas)
Some of G?nter Kunert (stories, memoir)
Thomas Brasch (stories, plays, poems)
Uwe Johnson (stories, lectures, novels)
Hans Henny Jahnn (novels, stories, plays)
Lion Feuchtwanger (novels)
Georg B?chner (plays, Prose)
Reinhold Lenz (Plays)

and many, many, many others



My favorite living writers:
Ilija Trojanov
Siegfried Lenz
G?nter Grass (my favorite living German writer)
Marcel Beyer
Wilhelm Genazino

[Mirabell]

by the way, not that its an argument, but type in German Literature in the German language wiki and you get redirected to German-language literature. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Literatur
Because its the most important way of dividing lit for us.

[Eric]

Mirabell:

At last, we're getting some expanded opinions, and detail. I'm all for you saying that a book is crap, but unless you say why, it begins to sound very arbitrary. And if too many in a row are crap, it gives me the impression that you run after current trends too much, then find the books you read are well, er, crap, and don't spend enough time developing your own tastes.

Eric (spelling!) notices that you have a nice sprinkling of books in your list. I think that's what interests the rest of us: what you read, why, and then whether you liked them or not. It you wrote university-level essays saying merely that a book was crap, your tutor would grow alarmed.

When you call Fontane condescending, you have to remember that gender roles were a little different when he wrote. You cannot dismiss every 19th century author because they didn't know that in 50 years' time, women's emancipation would be an important issue. I have read neither Storm nor Fontane yet, but as I said before, G?nter de Bruyn wrote some excellent essays on them.

Please do not typecast "male critics". There are many males, young, old, straight, gay, conservative, radical, etc. Tarring all "males" (aka "men") with the same brush is the same sort of simplification as when people say that women are all hysterical and suffer constantly from PMS, which damages their prowess as authors.

[Mirabell]

Oh, dear EriC. Do you not assume that I have read enough 19th century lit, including Freytag and Raabe, who plow similar fields as Fontane, that calling Fontane condescending means I think he's MORE condescending than is normal for his day and age? Where do you get off lecturing me on such banalities as
you have to remember that gender roles were a little different when he wrote.
?

Yes, de Bruyn (like what I read of his books, btw.) likes Fontane, as does Grass. Far Afield is like a long statement of adoration for Fontane. Many, many writers like Fontane and before long I will reread some key works. It's always possible that I'll change my mind. Reading can be subject to moods and influenced by books read before and after that -given enough time- I'll gladly reread a book to see whether I was "right" about it.

[ajourneyroundmyskull]

Any thoughts on Marie Louise Kaschnitz? I read her story "The Black Lake" this weekend and found myself feeling devastated. It's kind of a ghost story. A bunch of her books made it into English, but I've never seen her discussed.

[Mirabell]

Nice. Not necessary but nice. Stories are significantly better than her poetry. Maybe I've been numbed to her because she's a staple in German schools, at least where I lived. Easy, 'deep' stories, not too taxing and good fodder for adolescents to practice their interpretation skills.

[Eric]

Mirabell, I've not yet tackled G?nter de Bruyn's two-volume memoirs, but have only read his essays in, I think, Deutsche Zust?nde. (I can't remember which book because I borrowed it from the library.) It got me rather interested in the March of Brandenburg and the various writers that lived there.

But I've not followed anything up. I've been distracted by so many other things. I did buy the memoirs (Zwischenbilanz - Eine Jugend in Berlin; Vierzig Jahre - Ein Lebensbericht), which I will read one day. The first volume covers de Bruyn's youth and war years, the second, life in the GDR. He writes a straightforward kind of German that I can understand.

I also once bought a rather battered small boxed set of some of Fontane's works, including Effi Briest and Der Stechlin.

[Mirabell]

A German writer worth seeking out and reading is Siegfried Lenz

wiki sayeth
Siegfried Lenz (b. 17 March (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_17) 1926 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926) in Lyck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyck) (Ełk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%C5%82k)), East Prussia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Prussia)) is a German (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany) writer who has written twelve novels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novels) and produced several collections of short stories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story), essays (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essay), and plays (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Play_%28theatre%29) for radio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio) and the theatre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre). He was awarded the Goethe Prize (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe_Prize) in Frankfurt-am-Main (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt-am-Main) on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe) birth. Lenz and his wife, Liselotte, also exchanged over 100 letters with Paul Celan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Celan) and his wife, Gis?le Lestrange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gis%C3%A8le_Lestrange) between 1952 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1952) and 1961 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961).

[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Siegfried_Lenz&action=edit&section=1)] Life

Siegfried Lenz was born in 1926, the son of a customs officer in Lyck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyck), East Prussia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Prussia). After his graduation exam in 1943, he was drafted into the navy.
According to documents released in June 2007, he may have joined the Nazi party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSDAP) on the 12th of July 1943[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Lenz#cite_note-0).
Shortly before the end of World War II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II), he defected to Denmark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark), but became a prisoner of war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner_of_war) in Schleswig-Holstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schleswig-Holstein).
After his release, he attended the University of Hamburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Hamburg), where he studied philosophy, English, and Literary history. His studies were cut off early, however, as he became an intern for the daily paper "Die Welt," and served as its editor from 1950 to 1951. It was there he met his future wife, Liselotte (d. February 5, 2006). They were married in 1949.
Since 1951, Lenz worked as a freelance writer in Hamburg and was a member of the literature forum "Group 47." Together with G?nter Grass, he became engaged in the SPD movement and aided the "Eastern Politics" of Willy Brandt. A champion of the movement, he was invited in 1970 to the signing of the German-Polish Contract.
Since 2003, Lenz has been a visiting professor at the D?sseldorf Heinrich Heine University and a member of the organization for German "Rechtschreibung" (grammar reform) and proper speech.
In 1951, Lenz took the money he had earned from his first novel, Habichte in der Luft, and financed a trip to Kenya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya). During his time there, he wrote about the Mau-Mau Rebellion in his history Lukas, sanftm?diger Knecht.

[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Siegfried_Lenz&action=edit&section=2)] Incomplete bibliography



1960 Das Feuerschiff (The Lightship, translated by Hoffmann and Campe Verlag, 1962)
1968 Deutschstunde (German Lesson, translated E. Kaiser and E. Wilkins, New Directions, 1968)
1973 Das Vorbild (An Exemplary Life, Secker & Warburg, 1976)
1978 Heimatmuseum (The Heritage, translated K. Winston, Secker & Warburg, 1981)
1985 Exerzierplatz (Training Ground, translated G. Skelton, Methuen, 1991)
1990 Die Klangprobe
1994 Die Auflehnung
1995 The Selected Stories of Siegfried Lenz (Northwestern University Press) ISBN 0-8101-1314-7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0810113147)

[Mirabell]

On GDR Literature


In case you get your hands on copies of it, I recommed GDR literature to you.

For whatever reason, I am more attracted to Austrian and GDR literature than to (West) German.

As much of the Austrian literature I cherish is a reaction against the Austrian bourgeois culture (cf. Waldheim affair) and a celebration of the grand Austrian tradition at the same time, with all the contradictions that stem from this,

GDR literature is often written by communists, who were taught that the GDR was the anti-fascist dream state, who learned that communism would free everyone from repression, emancipate everyone, but who grew up in a state that was authoritarian in the general political structure, and on the private level structured like the most bourgeois community to be found in the west. Spie?b?rger. And especially the intellectuals, who had read Reich, knew that this wasn't communism (cf. Bini Adamscak), but they had been told that communism was achievable.

Between these two poles, repression and revolution, developed one of the most amazing German literatures, especially poetry.
Some presented that tension in the development of their work, like the wonderful Brigitte Reimann, who started writing optimistic Aufbau literature like "Ankunft im Alltag" (Arriving in the Quotidian) and segued over in books that reflected the plight of women in a sexually repressive bourgeois state.

Heiner M?ller, too, started with Aufbau plays, wrote odes to Stalin, but he, too, soon became embittered, tough he took abother route. M?llers plays at first began to reflect how the new state failed the hopes of its citizens and then, and these are his strongest plays, wrote revolution plays that showed the impossibility of revolution and the necessity for it. These plays became more and more bitter the longer he lived.

Irmtraud Morgner was another great writer who reflected the governments failings from a communist perspective in her novels, the best of which has been translated and is highly recommended. The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura: A Novel in Thirteen Books and Seven Intermezzos is an amazing feminist novel. I may write a short review for the review section. Here are two quotes from the German. (http://shigekuni.blogspot.com/2008/06/beauty.html)

Poets like Johannes Bobrowski and the incredible Peter Huchel (Huchel has been translated into English. As much as poetry translations suck, this one was done by a very good translator and it's better to read Huchel in translation than not at all, go for it!) have escaped direct political comment by fleeing into metaphors, but Huchel, who headed the most influential literary magazine Sinn und Form had altercations with cadre writers and subsequently with the government. In the following years he barely wrote and published nothing. 1971 he left the GDR to die ten years later, showered with prizes.

The reason why poets who left the GDR were often showered wioth prizes or attention upon leaving didn't always refer to their quality, especially not if they were perceived as dissidents. It was a political attention, a question of winning a war. If you left the GDR you had to be a dissident, woudned and weary from the fights.

Another famous Emigr?, Reiner Kunze, a sensible though (at times) annoying poet, wrote of this often, for instance in the poem "Dichter, nicht gekreuzigt" in a volume of poetry that is concerned with his leaving one Germany and arriving in another Germany.

A poet whose work is spotty, but in many places brilliant is Stephan Hermlin, whose early dense revolutionary poetry (Zw?lf Balladen von den gro?en St?dten) is impressive, beautiful and rousing. Equally spotty but less rousing and more subtle in his brilliant moments is Christoph Meckel.

Possibly the major GDR playwright, Peter Hacks is a great writer and well worth reading, but more for his poetry than for his plays, I say. His plays can be comlacent and lack vision if one has read M?ller before.

Christa Wolf, another major writer, is not for everyone. I must have read most of her novels and stories, but she has a very idiosyncratic style, which makes many people reject her. Her books are inhibited by a sensitive personality, torn between (communistic) hope, between the Nazi past, and between the numbing effect of repression. Indeed, it's often women who express the GDR contradictions best, because they, after all, were promised Emancipation, some were even willing to undergo dictatorship for that, but the GDR was as sexually repressive as the West in many respects (and this despite several differences, it's astonishing), add to that the political repression and you can see where the conflict arises. Her writing is vibrant, direct, personal and highly idiosyncratic. She is easily one of the best German post-WWII stylists.

As is Thomas Brasch, who published some poetry, an amazing volume of short prose and some plays before he ran into trouble with the state and left in 1976. The volume of short prose, Vor den V?tern sterben die S?hne, is highly recommended and should be translated (if any publisher reads this, get to it!). His poetry is as Brechtian as Brecht (and M?ller), I wonder how he and M?ller got along. He continues to publish plays and an incredibly condensed novella, M?dchenm?rder Brunke. His last volume of poetry, published posthumously is one of my favorite poetry books on my shelves.

Finally, one would have to mention Uwe Johnson, der Dichter beider Deutschland (the poet of both Germanies), although he published his first novel in the West and emigrated shortly afterwards. He is the best writer on this list, everything he wrote is unspeakably great, start with the Mutmassungen ?ber Jakob (translated as Speculations about Jacob, although I'd consider him not well translatable) and move on. He was as critical of West Germany as of East Germany, but in the end, drink and paranoia got the best of him. In the late 70s and 80s a myth about the number of informants had developed, that very dumb people still repeat these days (anyone from the CDU, for instance), that is, that every neighbor was an informant. The number of informants was actually pretty low, it turned out in the late 90s, but the damage was done. Johnson, for instance, always suspected his wife of having been an informer and in his great (and recommened) Frankfurt lectures he publicly accused her of having been one, a myth that was only dispelled a decade afterwards. His Jahrestage is a success in every possible way (althiough the third part does drag a bit) and together with the Mutmassungen, one of the enduring parts of German literature.

[fausto]

I read one book by Reinhard Jirgl and was completely blown away by it. Didn't he spend most of his life in the GDR?

[Eric]

Thanks Mirabell, for such a thorough overview of GDR literature. This gives us plenty of leads to follow. I shall look up the appropriate sections in the Emmerich book for starters, to get some idea of what they wrote.

As I have mentioned somewhere, I have access to literature written in German at the Amsterdam University Library and the specialist bookshop, also in Amsterdam, called Die Wei?e Rose named after the anti-fascist resistance movement. The pleasant thing is they charge the same prices as in Germany. Often, when you buy books from another country they cost more.

[Mirabell]

@Eric: yeah, I'm sorry I did it this personally, I tend to do that, and there's many many more. You may want to look up Volker Braun, too, for instance, or G?nter Kunert, Franz F?hmann, Inge M?ller (Heiner's first wife, who killed herself and left a slim but brilliant body of work). I totally forgot Reiner Kirsch, of whom I have but a slim volume of poetry and Sarah Kirsch, a great feminist writer, I have a volume of collected prose which is nice, not outstanding, and one of collected poems which is awesome. There are few (Post)modern German poets who match her command of language, although I heard people complain of its 'feminity'. Well. Not for you I guess. Hermann Kant is a famous writer and infamous functionary. Only thing of his I read was Die Aula which is straight socialist realism, but very well written, very well done, a recommendation. Heinz Kahlau is a good poet, but only recommended when you're very much into German poetry. See, I am, and he hasn't made it on my shelves.

I'm afraid it's getting somewhat thinner at this point. Erich Loest is worth reading I guess, although I never did. All that Nikolaikirche whining. But he's supposed to be good.

Anybody else remarkable I've forgotten? High on Huchel, Braun etc. I read masses of poems so I guess I know some more poets, and a few prose writers (Johannes Tralow, Gert Prokop come to mind), but nothing remarkable.

[Mirabell]

I read one book by Reinhard Jirgl and was completely blown away by it. Didn't he spend most of his life in the GDR?


I'm still reading a book of his, am still getting blown away. I guess you're right. Just didn't think of him in that way.

[fausto]

Ilija Trojanow - His first book to be translated into French will be published next August. It's called Le collectionneur des mondes. I guess it's a translation of Der weltensammler. Anyone read it? Should I? What to expect?

Something else:
Three pages in a thread on German literature and no mention of Arno Schmidt?

The first I read was Das steinerne Herz (in French translation). My first reaction was of shock. I knew this was something special and I liked the trip but I sensed I didn't get it. I've read a few more since then and am being wow-ed more each and every time. You know, that impression that what you're reading is unique... Most of the time, the impression comes from the fact that you just haven't read much so anything out of the ordinary will strike you as unique. Not going to claim I read everything there was to be read, but with Schmidt it seems to truly be the case of something unique because it's indeed... unique. I'm amazed by his writing. Reading him is, for a few pages, like falling from very high without parachute. You just don't quite know where you are or what to do. And then it starts making sense and it becomes so rewarding. It's demanding literature, but if you're able to follow him rewards come in numbers.

[fausto]

Mirabell, Ilija Trojanow - His first book to be translated into French will be published next August. It's called Le collectionneur des mondes. I guess it's a translation of Der weltensammler. Advice?

[adaorardor]

Any thoughts on these? The Dietmar Dath sounds like something by Grass maybe..?

German Book Prize 2008 - the shortlist - signandsight (http://www.signandsight.com/features/1757.html)

[Stewart]

I've not, but some do over on the Deutscher Buchpreis 2008 (http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/news-discussion/3401-deutscher-buchpreis-2008-a.html) thread.

[Mirabell]

Any thoughts on these? The Dietmar Dath sounds like something by Grass maybe..?

German Book Prize 2008 - the shortlist - signandsight (http://www.signandsight.com/features/1757.html)


Dath never sounded like Grass, haven't read the new one yet but there's no rason why he should start now.

[Stewart]

I'm fresh back from a trip to the Goethe Institut this evening and there picked up a copy of a booklet called New Books in German. It's represented online by, er, New Books in German (http://new-books-in-german.com/).

I've just been reading it on the bus home and it's been interesting. Many names who it looks like have never seen an English translation before, others who have one or two to their name. It covers fiction and non-fiction, given details of rights and about German publishing houses: there's even a little two page essay on Germany's 'migrant' literature.

As well as new books in German, it also highlights the quarterly German books in English, with a varied range of German titles in, or coming to, a book store near you. All in all, quite a handy little guide.

[Katy]

Re: Arno Schmidt -

You can listen to an entire reading by his translator John Woods on Chicago Public Radio, and it's excellent:

Chicago Amplified - An Evening of Literature by and about Arno Schmidt (http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=29723)

And I can also recommend Trojanow's Collector of Worlds; a wonderful read that shuts out the outside world.

[Mirabell]

I dunno. I'm very slow with German contemp
esp young German writers
so many bad experiences
everytime I try someone who people say is "really good"
I am usually horrified that a publisher would even consider publishing it
with a few notable exceptions. Ilja Trojanow is a good and promising writer. If you asked me who of the present generation of young German writers will make the canon, Trojanow's certainly a good candidate.


Mirabell, Ilija Trojanow - His first book to be translated into French will be published next August. It's called Le collectionneur des mondes. I guess it's a translation of Der weltensammler. Advice?

http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/european-literature/8905-ilija-trojanow-collector-worlds.html

[jackdawdle]

Aber die name ist nicht Duetch. Ilija Trojanow? Nein.

[Mirabell]

He's of Bulgarian descent, fled into the West when he was ten. German citizen, writes and publishes in German. see also my review. ;)

[kateuic]

No mention of Hans Bemmann "Stein und Floete", and "The Broken Goddess", or Michael Ende's albeit children's classics, "Momo" and "Die unendliche Geschichte" ...

[Stiffelio]

Has anybody heard of writer Tilman Rammstedt? One of his novels, Wir bleiben in der N?he has just been published in Spanish translation as Nos Quedamos Cerca by Argentinian independent publishing firm Eterna Cadencia.

Eterna Cadencia - Librer?a y Editorial (http://www.eternacadencia.com/editorial.htm)

Is he any good?

Here is a brief bio of Rammstedt I found in English:

Tilman Rammstedt was born in 1975 in Bielefeld and now lives in Berlin. DuMont published his debut novel Erledigungen vor der Feier in 2003 as well as it’s successor, Wir bleiben in der N?he, in 2005. Tilman Rammstedt has received the Open Mike award, the Rheinische Kulturf?rderpreis, the New York stipend of the Kulturstiftung der L?nder, the Kassel Literaturf?rderpreis for grotesque humour and the Literaturf?rderpreis of the State of Nordrhein-Westphalia, both the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize and the Audience Award at the Days of Literature in Klagenfurt, and the Annette von Droste H?lshoff Prize.

[Eric]

Here's a recent review article about three translations from German, plus a book about German cultural history:

http://standpointmag.co.uk/books-november-10-the-german-question-daniel-johnson-peter-watson-gunter-grass-friedrich-christian-delius-daniel-kehlmann-german

[accidie]

Has Mirabell or anyone able to read German read anything by Ror Wolf? and if so, what is his writing like? I came upon his name for the first time yesterday and his Two or Three Years Later sounds very appealing. It doesn't seem to have been translated into English, though.

As for female writers, I quite liked the one novel and few stories I've read by Gisele Elsner, but my judgement may have been influenced by the fact that her life was so colourful. . .

[Bubba]

Any thoughts on Marie Louise Kaschnitz? I read her story "The Black Lake" this weekend and found myself feeling devastated. It's kind of a ghost story. A bunch of her books made it into English, but I've never seen her discussed.

I realize this is an old post, responded to (upthread) by a "former member," but, from my slight familiarity with her work, I think Kaschnitz deserves better than Mirabell's slightly condescending response. It's in no way Kaschnitz's fault that teachers assign their students her stories. Stories, which, it seems to me, are excellent. I've read a few of them in French-published anthologies, annotated in German and with a German-French glossary in the back, of German-language short stories, and it's always been the Kaschnitz stories I've liked most. They are simple, deceptively so, the vocabulary and structure aren't too complex, and they have everyday settings. I like them so much in part, but only in part, because they are well suited to someone who, like me, struggles mightily with the German of more outwardly complex writers.

I'll also say that I much prefer editions such as these (original text annotated and with a glossary in the back) to the facing-page bilingual editions that are generally more common (except in expensive textbooks designed for classroom use) in English-language countries.

[Liam]

A recent article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/24/helene-hegemann-axolotl-novelist-interview) in The Guardian about Helene Hegemann, a literary sensation at 17 (she's now 20 y.o.) who was accused of plagiarism and whose star set just as quickly as it had risen. Reading this article it seems the bits that she plagiarized weren't all that important, so what the fuck?

[Aldawen]

Yes, it was a quite a discussion in Germany two years ago which perhaps was intensified by the fact that the nomination for the book prize of the Leipzig Book Fair wasn't drawn back even after plagiarism was proved. Apart from that: The book wasn't simply worth the attention it got. A 17 year old girl, refusing to grow up and putting pubertal fantasies in scatological language just to arise attention and create a scandal because even this helps selling. Nothing to note really, must be the silly season in the media ...

[Liam]

just to arise attention and create a scandalWell, it worked. Now all she needs is to write a second novel, and this time to make sure that all the words are hers, :p.

[Aldawen]

I doubt that a publisher will go for the risk again and that many people would be willing to pay for a second book from that girl ;) So I think she's already got the maximum possible - attention as well as money - out of it ...

[Eric]

This kind of first book and young-as-possible adulation is what people who are seriously interested in literature should be working against. It's been the same with that French writer who wrote the Heydrich book. People who have hardly started their careers as authors are already praised to the heavens, and when the balloon bursts and no one cares any more, some of them will no doubt become suicidal.

The publishing industry loves to promote any pretty face (actually maybe Hegemann is a bloke with a big wig, as people have said of his year's Eurovision Song Contest winner, who has already disappeared from view here in Sweden). It is tragic for immature wannabe bestseller writers to be boosted to the heights of fame by rabid hype-experts, only to be dumped for another first-novel-wonder a year later.

The publishing industry should get back to publishing good literature instead of promoting every photogenic teenager that comes along.