Documentary narration in German literary prose before and after the political turn of 1989 Cover Image

Dokumentarisches Erzählen in der deutschsprachigen Prosa vor und nach der Wende des Jahres 1989
Documentary narration in German literary prose before and after the political turn of 1989

Author(s): Elżbieta Tomasi-Kapral
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, German Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: documentary literature; protocol literature; GDR; collapse of the GDR; Ministry of State Security

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on documentary narration in literary prose, which is analyzed with regard to its function and poetics using the example of selected texts of GDR protocol literature and German documentary literature of the post-reunification years. The question of what constitutes the peculiarity of documentary literature and what caused its popularity in the pre- and post-reunification period will be explored. Furthermore, selected examples will be used to illustrate how the levels of the factual and the fictional intermingle and complement each other in the individual texts. The texts discussed in this article are narratives that remain close to factual events, but at the same time fictionalize them and therefore cannot be considered completely and unambiguously in either the category of literary fiction or documentary.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 16
  • Page Range: 103-120
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: German