SOURCE: “Reality Broken in Two,” in Understanding Christa Wolf: Returning Home to a Foreign Land, University of South Carolina Press, 1997, pp. 54–68.

In the following essay, Resch examines the narrative structure, fictive techniques, and themes surrounding the invention of memory and identity in The Quest for Christa T.

Christa Wolf did not think that The Quest for Christa T. fit the literary genre of the novel. Therefore, she asked that the label “novel” not be printed on the book cover. This is the first sign of an act of courageous defiance—creating a book that challenged the most sacred tenets of socialism and violated the essential principles of socialist realism. To smooth the arduous path to publication and to placate the cultural functionaries who would determine the book's fate, Wolf introduced her work carefully. She held public readings, explicated excerpts, described her narrative techniques, and boldly bent the official...