Narrative and Fantasy in the Post-War German Novel

Narrative and Fantasy in the Post-War German Novel, a study of novels by Uwe Johnson, Max Frisch, Christa Wolf, Jurek Becker, and Günter Grass, investigates the fictions and fantasies invented by five narrators, examining the purpose which the fictions serve within each text and the means by which each author deliberately draws attention to them. All five authors are shown to be concerned with the kinds of stories which ordinary people tell about themselves and their past lives. While some of the texts demonstrate the positive power of imagination, others point to the dangers of fiction: its tendency to falsify reality and to encourage escapist and violent fantasies. This is the first major study of this distinctive trend in post-war German fiction.