Christa Wolf | |
|---|---|
 Wolf in 1963 | |
| Born | Christa Ihlenfeld (1929-03-18)18 March 1929 |
| Died | 1 December 2011(2011-12-01) (aged 82) Berlin, Germany |
| Occupation | Novelist, short story writer, essayist |
| Spouse | Gerhard Wolf [de] (1951–2011) |
Christa Wolf (German:[ˈkʁɪs.tavɔlf]ⓘ;néeIhlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist. She is considered one of the most important writers to emerge from the formerEast Germany.[1][2]
Wolf was born the daughter of Otto and Herta Ihlenfeld, inLandsberg an der Warthe, then in theProvince of Brandenburg.[1] AfterWorld War II, her family, being Germans, wereexpelled from their home on what had become Polish territory. They crossed the newOder-Neisse border in 1945 and settled inMecklenburg, in what would become theGerman Democratic Republic.
She studied literature at theUniversity of Jena and theUniversity of Leipzig. After her graduation, she worked for the German Writers' Union and became an editor for a publishing company. While working as an editor for publishing companies Verlag Neues Leben and Mitteldeutscher Verlag and as a literary critic for the journalNeue deutsche Literatur, Wolf was provided contact with antifascists and Communists, many of whom had either returned from exile or from imprisonment in concentration camps. Her writings discuss political, economic, and scientific power, making her an influential spokesperson in East and West Germany during post-World War II for the empowerment of individuals to be active within the industrialized and patriarchal society.[3]
She joined theSocialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1949 and left it in June 1989, six months before the Communist regime collapsed. She was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the SED from 1963 to 1967.Stasi records found in 1993 showed that she worked as an informant (Inoffizieller Mitarbeiter) during the years 1959–61.[2]
Stasi officers criticized what they called her "reticence", and they lost interest in her cooperation. She was herself then closely monitored for nearly 30 years. During theCold War, Wolf was openly critical of the leadership of the GDR, but she maintained a loyalty to the values of socialism and opposedGerman reunification.[4] Her experience of being under Stasi surveliance was reflected in her novellaWas bleibt (What Remains).
In 1961, she publishedMoskauer Novelle (Moscow Novella). Wolf's breakthrough as a writer came in 1963 with the publication ofDer geteilte Himmel (Divided Heaven orThey Divided the Sky).[5] Her subsequent works includedNachdenken über Christa T. (The Quest for Christa T., 1968),Kindheitsmuster (Patterns of Childhood, 1976),Kein Ort. Nirgends (No Place on Earth, 1979),Kassandra (Cassandra, 1983),Störfall (Accident, 1987),Auf dem Weg nach Tabou (On the Way to Taboo, 1994),Medea (1996), andStadt der Engel oder The Overcoat of Dr. Freud (City of Angels or The Overcoat of Dr. Freud, 2010).
Christa T. was a work that — while briefly touching on a disconnection from one's family's ancestral home – was primarily concerned with the experiences of a woman feeling overwhelming societal pressure to conform. Kate Webb inThe Guardian called the novel Wolf's "most important work" and wrote that it became a "feminist classic".[6]
Kassandra is perhaps Wolf's most important book[citation needed], reinterpreting theBattle of Troy as a war for economic power and a shift from a matriarchal to a patriarchal society. The novellaWas bleibt, which described her life under Stasi surveillance, was written in 1979, but not published until 1990.Auf dem Weg nach Tabou gathered essays, speeches, and letters written during the four years following thereunification of Germany.Leibhaftig (2002) describes a woman struggling with life and death in 1980s East-German hospital, while awaiting medicine from the West. Central themes in her work are German fascism, humanity, feminism, and self-discovery. In many of her works, Wolf uses illness as a metaphor. In a speech addressed to theDeutsche Krebsgesellschaft (German Cancer Society) she says, "How we choose to speak or not to speak about illnesses such as cancer mirrors our misgivings about society." InNachdenken über Christa T., the protagonist dies of leukemia. This work demonstrates the dangers and consequences that happen to an individual when they internalize society's contradictions.
InAccident, the narrator's brother is undergoing surgery to remove a brain tumor a few days after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster had occurred.[7]
In 2004, she edited and published her correspondence with her UK-based near namesakeCharlotte Wolff over the years 1983–1986 (Wolf, Christa and Wolff, Charlotte (2004)Ja, unsere Kreise berühren sich: Briefe,Luchterhand Munich).
Wolf died 1 December 2011, aged 82, in Berlin, where she had lived with her husband,Gerhard Wolf [de].[8] She was buried on 13 December 2011 in Berlin'sDorotheenstadt cemetery.[9] In 2018, the city of Berlin designated her grave as anEhrengrab.[10]
Although Wolf's works were widely praised in both Germanys in the 1970s and 1980s, they have sometimes been seen as controversial[clarification needed] sinceGerman reunification.[11][12]Nicholas Shakespeare (novelist and biographer) wrote that in East Germany "writers such as Christa Wolf became irrelevant overnight once the Berlin Wall was broached".[13]
Upon publication ofWas bleibt, West German critics such as Frank Schirrmacher argued that Wolf failed to criticize the authoritarianism of the East German Communist regime, whilst others called her works "moralistic". Defenders have recognized Wolf's role in establishing a distinctly East German literary voice.[14]
Fausto Cercignani's study of Wolf's earlier novels and essays on her later works have helped promote awareness of her narrative gifts, irrespective of her political and personal ups and downs. The emphasis placed by Cercignani on heroism of women in Christa Wolf's works has opened the way to subsequent studies in this direction.[15]
Wolf received theHeinrich Mann Prize in 1963, theGeorg Büchner Prize in 1980, and theSchiller Memorial Prize in 1983, theGeschwister-Scholl-Preis in 1987, as well as other national and international awards. After the German reunification, Wolf received further awards: in 1999 she was awarded theElisabeth Langgässer Prize and theNelly Sachs Literature Prize. Wolf became the first recipient of theDeutscher Bücherpreis (German Book Prize) in 2002 for her lifetime achievement. In 2010, Wolf was awarded theGroßer Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste.
Books
Anthologies
Fetz, Gerald; Herminghouse, Patricia, eds. (31 December 2022).What Remains: Responses to the Legacy of Christa Wolf. Berghahn Books.doi:10.1515/9781800734975.ISBN 978-1-80073-497-5.
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