Tom 1900-1945, Bibliographic, Class, Gender, Primary, Queer

Keun, Irmgard. Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932; repr. Munich: DTV, 1995)

Keun's Berlin novel is one of the best for exploring gender, sexuality and social change in Berlin of the 1920s and early 1930s. Her protagonist's first-person narration draws on modernism and the inner monologue and investigates her unsettled relationship to herself and to the promise of the city. The novel explores the precarity of many … Continue reading Keun, Irmgard. Das kunstseidene Mädchen (1932; repr. Munich: DTV, 1995)

Tom Bibliographic, Gender, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Opitz, Detlef. ‘LUST/IG. eine landschaft’, in Idylle: Erzählungen und andere Texte (Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1990)

Opitz's text is often overlooked in courses on gender and sexuality in the GDR, but this short narrative is excellent for approaching questions of coming-of-age, standards of masculinity and desires between men in the context of the late GDR. Set near the inner-German border, the story relates boundaries of behaviour to the geopolitical boundary, while … Continue reading Opitz, Detlef. ‘LUST/IG. eine landschaft’, in Idylle: Erzählungen und andere Texte (Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1990)

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

Zaimoglu, Feridun. German Amok (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2002)

Zaimoglu is perhaps better known for his debut work Kanak Sprak (1995) and the Kanak Attack movement that it inspired. German Amok continues Zaimoglu's interest in masculinity and in the relationship between subcultures and the mainstream in contemporary German society. It follows an artist narrator through his sardonic and scathing critique of the German arts scene, even as … Continue reading Zaimoglu, Feridun. German Amok (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2002)

Tom Bibliographic, Gender, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Strubel, Antje Rávic. Unter Schnee (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2001)

Strubel is one of my all time favourites. Her novels probe issues of gender diversity and sexuality that go beyond binaries of male/female or gay/straight. This episodic novel could be placed alongside Ingo Schulze's Simple Storys to discuss the influence of the short story form, or it could be placed along other novels that explore post-reunification … Continue reading Strubel, Antje Rávic. Unter Schnee (Frankfurt: Fischer, 2001)

Tom 1900-1945, Bibliographic, Gender, Primary, Queer

Oswald, Richard (dir.). Anders als die Andern (Oswald-Film, 1919)

Richard Oswald's 'Aufklärungsfilm' was one of the first films in the world to deal with the subject of homosexuality, and also is an important film in the history of trans and intersex identities. It features the sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, who also consulted on the film. The film's reception history enables a discussion of censorship mechanisms … Continue reading Oswald, Richard (dir.). Anders als die Andern (Oswald-Film, 1919)

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

Khider, Abbas. Ohrfeige (Munich: Hanser, 2016)

Khider's fourth novel received a lot of attention in the press - it opens with an immigration worker being tied up and slapped (the 'Ohrfeige' of the title) by Karim, an Iraqi asylum seeker negotiating the German asylum system. Without giving away the novel's twists and turns, it looks closely at ideal or 'hegemonic' forms of … Continue reading Khider, Abbas. Ohrfeige (Munich: Hanser, 2016)

Nicola Bibliographic, German Outside Germany, Post-1945, Primary, Queer

Geiser, Christoph. Wüstenfahrt. Roman. Zürich: Nagel & Kimche 1984/Berlin: Verlag Volk und Welt, 1986

See also: Das geheime Fieber. Roman. Zürich: Nagel & Kimche, 1987 Das Gefängnis der Wünsche. Roman. Zürich: Nagel & Kimche, 1992 Kahn, Knaben, schnelle Fahrt. Eine Fantasie. Zürich: Nagel & Kimche, 1995 These books constitute the later oeuvre of Swiss author Christoph Geiser which, after the author's coming out as a gay man in the … Continue reading Geiser, Christoph. Wüstenfahrt. Roman. Zürich: Nagel & Kimche 1984/Berlin: Verlag Volk und Welt, 1986

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

Stefan, Verena. Fremdschläfer (Munich: Ammann, 2007)

Verena Stefan’s breast cancer narrative, written 32 years after her cult feminist book Häutungen (1975), for which she is mainly known in Germanist circles. Written by a mature woman, this is an atypical illness narrative worth including in investigations of the genre (which is dominated by white, middle-class, heterosexual writers). Challenging for students in that it … Continue reading Stefan, Verena. Fremdschläfer (Munich: Ammann, 2007)

Tom Bibliographic, Disability, Gender, German Outside Germany, Post-1945, Queer, Secondary

Schmidt, Nina. The Wounded Self: Writing Illness in Twenty-First-Century German Literature (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2018)

In the German-speaking world there has been a new wave - intensifying since 2007 - of autobiographically inspired writing on illness and disability, death and dying. Nina Schmidt's book takes this writing seriously as literature, examining how the authors of such personal narratives come to write of their experiences between the poles of cliché and … Continue reading Schmidt, Nina. The Wounded Self: Writing Illness in Twenty-First-Century German Literature (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2018)