SOURCE: Reiter, Andrea. “Reunification and Literature: Monika Maron from Die Überläuferin to Stille Zeile Sechs.” GDR Bulletin 24 (spring 1997): 67-72.

In the following essay, Reiter offers a comparative study of the narrative presentation, intertextual perspective, and evolving political consciousness of Maron's characters in Die Überläuferin and Stille Zeile Sechs, particularly how they reflect changing circumstances surrounding the reunification of Germany and Maron's effort to reconcile conflicting aspects of dissidence, passivity, and complicity.

In 1968 Dieter Wellershoff published his essay “Fiktion und Praxis” as a contribution to the discussion of whether literature should be politically engaged. In particular his essay was designed as a reply to, or corrective of, Hans Magnus Enzensberger's view that literature can never change society: rather, at its worst, it disguises social conflicts. Literature, Enzensberger held then, was harmless, an excuse for its producers not to become directly involved in political discussion.¹ Wellershoff denounces Enzensberger's...