Christa Wolf has an established reputation in both Germanies, and a substantial body of work which gets better and better with every new novel. Her first major novel, Nachdenken über Christa T. (1968), was widely translated, but in Britain we still do not know nearly enough of her. The present collection of her stories from the years 1960 to 1972 [Gesammelte Erzählungen] offers a good occasion to extend our acquaintance of her range, from domestic idyll through childhood reminiscence to dream and satirical fantasy; from the two wry "days in the life of a woman writer", "Dienstag, den 27. September" and "Juninachmittag", through the—for her—relatively straightforward "Blickwechsel", to the dream-tale "Unter den Linden" and on to three brilliant satires on current literary, social-scientific and sexual ideologies….

Her characteristic theme is the integrity and fulfilment of the self, and this determines the characteristic form of her novels: in Christa T...