Autobiografie – Metaautobiografie – Autosoziobiografie: Ostdeutsches autobiografisches Erinnern im neuen Jahrtausend
Autobiography – meta-autobiography – autosociobiography: Autobiographical East German remembrance in the new millennium

Summary/Abstract: This article draws attention to the autobiographical remembrance of East German authorsin their texts from the new millennium, viewing their autobiographical work through the lensof generational belonging. Using exemplary autobiographical texts, it demonstrates how they (re)construct memories of the East German past, what narrative strategies the authors use, andwhat their autobiographical texts bring to non-literary discourses. Generational differencesare exposed mainly in the use of meta-autobiographical procedures to differing degrees orthe integration of documentary media into the process of literary remembrance, as well as in thenature of autofiction. Generational affiliation is mainly thematized in the strongly factual texts of the youngest GDR-born authors, often associated with marketable self-staging practices.In contrast to the Aufbaugeneration (literally “build-up generation”) which constructedthe new East German society from the ruins of the postwar period, as represented bythe deeply self-reflexive, fictional meta-autobiography of Christa Wolf, the autobiographiesof young authors rarely reflect the complexity of the processes of remembering. By dealing withone’s own origins and linking one’s individual life story to larger socio-historical and political contexts, the most recent texts of the post-reunification generation in particular come close to autosociobiographies.

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