SOURCE: Glass-Wickersham, Erlis. Review of Animal Triste, by Monika Maron. World Literature Today 71, no. 1 (winter 1997): 137.

In the following review, Glass-Wickersham praises Maron's prose in Animal Triste and compliments the novel for being “eminently accessible.”

Monika Maron lived in the German Democratic Republic until 1988. She now resides in Berlin. Her earlier publications include three novels and a volume of essays in Fischer editions. Her participation in the activities of the Stasi (state-security service) during the post-Wall years has been widely discussed.

Maron's new novel has the interesting title Animal Triste. The work is about the human being as animal but also as spirit, about the aftereffects of sexual love but also the existential sadness of individuals and of an entire generation. It is a first-person narrative by a woman of uncertain age who has withdrawn from life, devoting herself to reliving a lost love affair, or each moment of...