Günter de Bruyn, author of novels, short stories, and essays, is one of the best-known and most respected writers in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). His style owes much to the nineteenth-century realists--Theodor Fontane in particular--and to the irony of the romantic novelist Jean Paul. Nevertheless, de Bruyn's works immerse the reader in the everyday reality of the contemporary GDR. His ironic perspective reveals fundamental conflicts between the socialist ideal and society as it is actually experienced by its less fortunate members. De Bruyn's sympathy is always on the side of the underprivileged. Those characters who have "made it"--whether functionaries, academics, or literati--are subjected to scrutiny which exposes the contradictions and hypocrisy of a rigid class society which subscribes--in theory--to egalitarian ideals. De Bruyn's fiction is, however, neither diatribe nor satire. It is the work of a fine humorist who creates scenes at which a...