Overview
Explores the performance of aging in the ""late style"" of Gunter Grass, Ruth Kluger, Christa Wolf, and Martin Walser. Demographers say that by the year 2060, every seventh person in Germany will be aged eighty or older, and every third person over sixty-five. The prediction for other Western countries is scarcely different. Indeed, the aging society is seen by some as a graver threat than even global warming, with potentially unmanageable tensions relating to intergenerational relationships, work and benefits, and flows of people. This book explores the representation and performance of aging in recent ""late-style"" German-language fiction. It situates the authors chosen as case studies -- Gunter Grass, Ruth Kluger, Christa Wolf, and Martin Walser -- in their biographical and social contexts and explores the significance of their aesthetic figuring of aging for debates raging both in Germany and internationally. In particular, the book looks at gender, generations, and trauma and their impact on how writers ""narrativize"" aging. Finally, it examines the ""timeliness"" of these different representations and late-style performances of aging in the context of the shift of social, political, and economic power away from the declining societies of theWest to the ascendant societies of the East. Stuart Taberner is Professor of Contemporary German Literature, Culture, and Society at the University of Leeds.
Full Product Details
Author: Stuart Taberner
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Imprint: Camden House Inc
Volume: v. 138
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.40cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.542kg
ISBN: 9781571135780
ISBN 10: 1571135782
Pages: 268
Publication Date: 02 December 2013
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
(E)xtensive . . . . Because of its clear language, meticulous textual analyses, and comprehensive bibliography (this book) is also suitable for students. In addition, (it) presents a picture of (writers of) a very specific generation whose life review allows them to come to grips with one of the central events of the twentieth century. ARBITRIUM (Karen Leeder)
[E]xtensive . . . . Because of its clear language, meticulous textual analyses, and comprehensive bibliography [this book] is also suitable for students. In addition, [it] presents a picture of [writers of] a very specific generation whose life review allows them to come to grips with one of the central events of the twentieth century. ARBITRIUM [Karen Leeder]
Author Information
STUART TABERNER is Professor of German at the University of Leeds, UK. He is Research Associate in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French at the University of the Free State, South Africa.
