Contemporary German Writers – serie

Herta Muller is one of the leading figures in the new generation of German writers. This collection of essays is intended as both an introduction for the general reader and a resource for the specialist. It contains ten previously unpublished short texts by Muller and a biographical outline.

Christoph Hein is widely regarded as one of the most important writers to emerge from the former GDR. This volume contains an interview with Hein, a previously unpublished prose piece by him, an up-to-date biography and critical articles which examine individual texts in detail.

Kerstin Hensel is one of the most productive and successful young writers in Germany today. From the late 1970s onwards she has published in a wide variety of genres, although she remains best known for her novels, short stories and poetry. Her most important work to date is the story Tanz am Kanal (1994), which has received much acclaim and has been widely discussed. Hensel has won a wide range of literary prizes and scholarships. In accordance with the aims of this series, this book is intended both as an introduction for the general reader and as a resource for the specialist. Through a series of academic articles the volume analyses all aspects of Hensel's writing, including poetry, plays and prose. It brings together the most up-to-date research on her work, from Britain, the United States and Germany. The volume also includes a previously unpublished story by Hensel, and an interview with the author held during her period as writer-in-residence at University of Wales Swansea in September 2000. It concludes with a comprehensive bibliography.

Esther Dischereit is a Berlin-based, Jewish-German author, who has played a prominent literary and cultural role in Germany since the 1980s. Through a series of academic articles in English and German this volume examines Dischereit's explorations of female Jewish-German identity in her numerous novels, poems, plays and essays, as well as how she views her own, sometimes conflicted position as a Jewish-German writer in the post-Holocaust Germany of today. The volume also includes previously unpublished work by Dischereit, and an in-depth interview with the author, held during her period as writer-in-residence at the Centre for Contemporary German Literature, Swansea University in July and September 2003.

This collection of essays devoted to the Swiss German writer, Peter Bichsel is intended both as an introduction for the general reader and as a resource for the specialist. It contains previously unpublished pieces by Bichsel, together with an interview and a short biography. A bibliography of Bichsel's writing is also included.