About the Book
After the international success in the 1990s of authors such as Bernhard Schlink, Marcel Beyer, and Thomas Brussig, an impressive number of new German-language novelists are making a significant impact. Some, like Karen Duve, Daniel Kehlmann, and Sasa Stanisic, have achieved international recognition; some, like Julia Franck, have won major prizes; others, like Clemens Meyer, Alina Bronsky, and Ilja Trojanow, are truly "emerging authors" who have begun toattract attention. Between them they represent a range of literatures in German, from women's writing to minority writing (from Turkish immigrants and Eastern Europe), to "pop literature" and perspectives on the former GDR and onGermany's Nazi past.
This volume devotes individual essays to fifteen such writers, examining in detail a major work of each. Translated excerpts from works by Vladimir Vertlib and Clemens Meyer round out the book, which willbe of interest not only to academics and students of English and Comparative Literature in the UK, the US, and beyond, but also to the general reader, for whom titles of texts and quotations are translated.
Contributors: Lyn Marven, Stuart Taberner, Anke S. Biendarra, Stephen Brockmann, Rebecca Braun, Frauke Matthes, Brigid Haines, Julian Preece, Emily Jeremiah, Valerie Heffernan, Barbara Mennel, Heike Bartel, Kate Roy, Andrew Plowman, Sonja E.Klocke, Jamie Lee Searle, Katy Derbyshire.
Lyn Marven is a Lecturer in German at the University of Liverpool. Stuart Taberner is Professor of Contemporary German Literature, Culture, and Society at the University of Leeds.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: New German-Language Writing since the Turn of the Millennium - Lyn Marven
Ulrike Draesner, Mitgift: On Bodies and Beauty - Lyn Marven
Vladimir Vertlib, Das besondere Gedächtnis der Rosa Masur: Performing Jewishness in the New Germany - Stuart Taberner
Terézia Mora, Alle Tage: Transnational Traumas - Anke S. Biendarra
Juli Zeh, Spieltrieb: Contemporary Nihilism - Stephen Brockmann
Daniel Kehlmann, Die Vermessung der Welt: Measuring Celebrity through the Ages - Rebecca Braun
Clemens Meyer, Als wir träumten: Fighting "Like a Man"in Leipzig's East - Frauke Matthes
Sasa Stanisic', Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert: Reinscribing Bosnia, or: Sad Things, Positively - Brigid Haines
Ilija Trojanow, Der Weltensammler: Separate Bodies, or: An Account of Intercultural Failure - Julian Preece
Sibylle Berg, Die Fahrt: Literature, Germanness, andGlobalization - Emily Jeremiah
Julia Franck, Die Mittagsfrau: Historia Matria and Matrilineal Narrative - Valerie Heffernan
Alina Bronsky, Scherbenpark: Global Ghetto Girl - Barbara Mennel
Karen Duve, Taxi: Of Alpha Males, Apes, Altenberg, and Driving in the City - Heike Bartel
Yadé Kara, Cafe Cyprus: New Territory? - Kate Roy
Sven Regener, Der kleine Bruder: Reinventing Kreuzberg - Andrew Plowman
Kathrin Schmidt, Du stirbst nicht: A Woman's Quest forAgency - Sonja Klocke
Appendices: Samples of Contemporary German-LanguageNovels in Translation
Notes on the Contributors
Index
About the Author :
LYN MARVEN is Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Liverpool. STUART TABERNER is Professor of German at the University of Leeds, UK. He is Research Associate in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Andrew Plowman is Senior Lecturer in
German at the University of Liverpool. FRAUKE MATTHES is a Lecturer in German at the University of Edinburgh. JULIAN PREECE is Professor and Chair of German at Swansea University, UK. Kate Roy is Adjunct Professor in Literature and Modern Languages (German) at Franklin University, Switzerland. LYN MARVEN is Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Liverpool. SONJA E. KLOCKE is Professor of German with an affiliation in Gender and Women's Studies as well as European Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also serves as Director of the Center for German and European Studies, a DAAD Center of Excellence. STEPHEN BROCKMANN is Professor of German with courtesy appointments in English and History at Carnegie Mellon University. STUART TABERNER is Professor of German at the University of Leeds, UK. He is Research Associate in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French at the University of the Free State, South Africa.
Review :
[P]rovides an excellent introduction to new and interesting writers. Just as important is the authors' and editors' ability to sketch out emerging topics and approaches.
[A]n interesting collection of heterogeneous essays . . . . Together they produce a constellation of emerging writers in the contemporary German literary landscape, giving us a flavour of German writing of the present day rather than a sense of trajectory. . . . This book will be a useful reference-point for scholars of twenty-first-century German literature.
Marven and Taberner have succeeded in assembling well-written essays on a wide variety of emerging authors that nevertheless connect with each other in their shared attention to subjects that are pervasive at the beginning of this new millennium. Their introduction to these authors will be welcomed by literary scholars as well as anybody else with an interest in the recent German literary scene.
[M]asterfully fulfills its objectives. . . . [T]he careful selection of novels will undoubtedly win new readers to exciting, innovative voices in twenty-first century German-language literature, just as their informed treatments will offer new insights to scholars already familiar with the works.
[A]n in-depth analysis of recently emerging authors . . . . [T]he chapters provide a neat snapshot of a decade's worth of literary productivity in Germany . . . . [Recommended] for graduate students and scholars, it should be at the top of the acquisitions list for research libraries.
This engaging, readable collection is an excellent introduction to the current literary scene in Germany. Each essay looks at an individual author and provides a succinct introduction to his or her life and work, along with a close reading of one significant novel, placing it firmly within its historical, political, and cultural context. A major strength is the collection's emphasis on transnational and migrant authors, who are among the most vital literary voices writing in Germany today. . . . Essential.
[A] welcome addition to the critical literature that attempts to provide an analytical frame for the flourishing . . . market of contemporary fiction written in German. . . . [It also] provides a snapshot of the diversity of approaches to reading German fiction. . . .
