East, West, and Others
Subtitle: The Third World in Postwar German Literature (Modern German Culture and Literature)
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: November 28, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9780803244313
Subjects: Literary studies: from c 1900 -; In literature; 20th Century Literature - History And Criticism; Literary Criticism; Literature - Classics / Criticism; French; Politics/International Relations; European - German; Literary Criticism & Collections / German; Developing countries; 20th century; German Literature; History and criticism
Description: East, West, and Others is the first work to examine the Third World in German literature from World War II to the present. Arlene A. Teraoka investigates how prominent post-World War II East and West German authors have portrayed the Third World. She discusses the persistent stereotypes of race, culture, and sexuality in texts by authors whose careers were shaped by concerns with Third World politics.

Those writers include Anna Seghers, Peter Weiss, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, and Heiner Muller; East Germans Claus Hammel and Peter Hacks; and the documentary West German writers Max von der Grun, Gunter Wallraff, and Paul Geiersbach. Teraoka demonstrates the continuing German need to construct a postwar identity freed from the fascist past and the conflicts and cliches that inevitably mar this dream of the self.