Unfreiwillige Wanderschaft im Erzählwerk Peter Härtlings
Involuntary Wanderings in Peter Härtling’s Prose

Summary/Abstract: In Peter HÄRTLING’s biography, the phenomena of escape and displacement represent crucial experiences. In HÄRTLING, these personal experiences from the war and immediate post-war years have kept on appearing ever since the mid-1970s to an increased extent as objects of memories. This is attested by the prose texts Zwettl (1973), Nachgetragene Liebe (1980), Der Wanderer (1988), Herzwand (1990), and Große, kleine Schwester (1998). Thanks to these works, HÄRTLING belongs to the “most important authors of displacement” in the contemporary German literature. This fact has still been little known in the professional world of literature science, and therefore his work hasn’t been studied with much intensity so far. This shortcoming is being awarded partial compensation in the present article. The investigation is focused on the topic of wanderings and the phenomenon of strangeness. Based on this, the relations of foreign country to native country, foreign country to identity, and foreign country to language are being analysed.

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