Echoes of Surrealism

Gerrit-Jan Berendse is Emeritus Professor of the School of Modern Languages at Cardiff University. His publications include Die Sächsische Dichterschule (1990), Grenz-Fallstudien (1999), Schreiben im Terrordom (2005), Vom Aushalten der Extreme (2011), and Baader-Meinhof Returns (2008), edited with Ingo Cornils.

“[The author’s] questions about the echoes of surrealism in the GDR lead him to unexpected places, but he always manages to connect the discoveries back to the topic of the interaction between surrealism and the cultural politics of East Germany…The breadth is impressive, and the story that emerges is interesting. Motivated graduate students might even use the volume as a kind of workbook, reading and analyzing specific works that Berendse mentions in passing. Indeed, pretty much any chapter in the volume could be a useful jumping off point for an interesting and worthwhile dissertation.” • The German Quarterly“An interesting study of an under-researched aspect of GDR literature which demonstrates the diversity of its cultural and aesthetic traditions. This is the first time the impact of East German surrealism has been discussed as a cohesive subject.” • Jean E. Conacher, University of Limerick

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations, Definitions and TranslationsIntroduction: The Surreal without SurrealismChapter 1. The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Post-war GermanyChapter 2. Return of the Avant-Garde? Brecht & Co. in the GDRChapter 3. ‘1968’ in the GDR: Franz Kafka and the Prague SpringChapter 4. Flirting with the Enemy: The Absurd and Grotesque in 1960s PoetryChapter 5. GDR’s Surrealist Nerve Centre: Adolf Endler’s Strange Nebbich WorldChapter 6. Wolfgang Hilbig’s Landscapes “Where the Minotaurs Graze”Chapter 7. “Flip-out-Elke”: Elke Erb’s Surrealistic PoetryChapter 8. Gabriele Stötzer under Surveillance: Feminism and the Avant-GardeChapter 9. East German Advocates of SurrealismConclusion: “Max Ernst Was Here!”BibliographyIndex