Heimat, Loss and Identity
Subtitle: Flight and Expulsion in German Literature from the 1950s to the Present
Publisher: Lang AG International Academic Publishers, Peter
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 227
ISBN-13: 9783034317412
Subjects: German fiction, history and criticism; Psychology in literature; Memory in literature
Description: What became of ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe during the Second World War? In recent years, their suffering, flight and expulsion during and after the war has attracted increasing critical attention. A wave of literary fiction has accompanied this trend, contributing to, and sometimes triggering, heated debate in the media and German-speaking society more widely. Often said to have broken a {u2018}taboo{u2019}, these postunification novels are in fact only the latest in a long history of literary representations of flight and expulsion in German writing. This book offers the first comprehensive account in English of {u2018}expulsion literature{u2019} in West Germany from the early 1950s to present-day Germany, providing detailed readings of both canonical and lesser known texts and carefully placing the novels in their broader literary and historical context. The book demonstrates that these literary representations have often been viewed too narrowly and offers an alternative and, arguably, more positive perspective on the representation of flight and expulsion over six decades in German literature. -- from publisher's website.