SOURCE: Jackman, Graham. “Von allem Anfang an ‘A Portrait of a Young Man?’” In Christoph Hein in Perspective, edited by Graham Jackman, pp. 187–210. Atlanta, Georgia: Rodopi, 2000.

In the following essay, Jackman explores the classification of Von allem Anfang an as fictional autobiography.

The title of Christoph Hein's most recent major prose work Von allem Anfang an provides the starting point for an examination of a number of aspects of the text. Its obvious autobiographical dimension may provide insights into the beginnings of Hein's aspirations as a writer who rejects all forms of conformism in favour of the dispassionate ‘Gelassenheit’ of the chronicler. Formal comparisons with Hein's earlier Horns Ende and with Walter Benjamin's Berliner Kindheit um Neunzehnhundert also suggest a wider, ‘chronicler's’ ambition to recall the early years of the GDR, which, though now rapidly receding into history, may not be without relevance for the ‘beginnings’ of the...