Tom Bibliographic, Gender, Post-1945, Primary, Queer, Race/Ethnicity

Wenzel, Olivia. 1000 Serpentinen Angst (Frankfurt, 2020)

Wenzel's debut novel has been long-listed for the Deutscher Buchpreis 2020 and offers some fantastic benefits for teaching. Her prose, like her previous theatrical work, experiments with form, perspective and repetition in creating the sense of 'Serpentinen' of the novel's title. The contemporary style and frequent use of spoken register is perfect for  intermediate and … Continue reading Wenzel, Olivia. 1000 Serpentinen Angst (Frankfurt, 2020)

Nicola Bibliographic, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Berg, Sibylle, Vielen Dank für das Leben (Munich: Hanser, 2012)

Berg's novel plots the life of Toto, born in the German Democratic Republic under unfortunate circumstances, leading on the one hand to a tale of rotten luck and chronic mistreatment at the hands of others as a young intersex individual, but on the other to her individual rise to self-confidence and contentment, despite all, with … Continue reading Berg, Sibylle, Vielen Dank für das Leben (Munich: Hanser, 2012)

Nicola Bibliographic, Class, Gender, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Heger, Heinz, Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel. Der Bericht eines Homosexuellen über seine KZ-Haft von 1939-1945 (Merlin, 1979)

Peter Davies, University of Edinburgh: "I teach a course on Holocaust testimony, touching amongst other things on issues of gender, sexuality, and different victim groups. This text is an early and iconic account from the perspective of an Austrian male homosexual. We look at questions of identity and sexual violence, and at the difficulty of … Continue reading Heger, Heinz, Die Männer mit dem rosa Winkel. Der Bericht eines Homosexuellen über seine KZ-Haft von 1939-1945 (Merlin, 1979)

Rey Conquer Bibliographic, Gender, Post-1945, Primary, Queer, Race/Ethnicity, Secondary

Oguntoye, Katharina, May Ayim and Dagmar Schultz (eds.). Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1986)

It has also been translated into English as Showing our colors: Afro-German women speak out (University of Massachusetts Press, 1991) and has an interesting foreword by Audre Lorde who worked a lot with Ayim. Anthology of texts considered seminal as a work of Black history in Germany, important also in demonstrating the specificities of the … Continue reading Oguntoye, Katharina, May Ayim and Dagmar Schultz (eds.). Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1986)

Tom Bibliographic, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Königsdorf, Helga. Ungelegener Befund (Berlin: Aufbau, 1990)

Königsdorf, known most of all for her first work of short monologues, Meine ungehörigen Träume (1978), produced one of the few fictional works in the GDR to deal with the subject of same-sex desire. This epistolary novel would be a great addition to a course on the epistolary form. Its letters, many of them unsent, skirt around … Continue reading Königsdorf, Helga. Ungelegener Befund (Berlin: Aufbau, 1990)

Tom Bibliographic, Gender, German Outside Germany, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Sulzer, Alain Claude. Aus den Fugen: Roman (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2012)

The Swiss writer Sulzer's novel Aus den Fugen focuses around a performance by a concert pianist of Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' sonata that breaks off midway. Refusing the drive to resolution that musicologists have described in Beethoven's music, the novel also shows characters' identities and relationships being challenged and reformulated around this moment of musical incompletion. Its interest … Continue reading Sulzer, Alain Claude. Aus den Fugen: Roman (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2012)