German Language & Literature

Historical Dictionary of German Literature to 1945 covers a wide swath of literary analysis and achievement, from Old High German lays and ecclesiastical encomia to Middle High German epics, sagas, and love lyrics. While extensive in its chronological dimension, the Historical Dictionary of German Literature to 1945 is equally comprehensive in the geographical and genre areas it covers. The history of this period in German literature is told through a detailed chronology, an introductory essay, a comprehensive bibliography, and over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries on poetry, novels, historical narrative, philosophical musings, and drama.

Designed to provide English readers of German literature the opportunity to familiarize themselves with both the established canon and newly emerging literatures that reflect the concerns of women and ethnic minorities, the Encyclopedia of German Literature includes more than 500 entries on writers, individual work, and topics essential to an understanding of this rich literary tradition.

This new edition of Mary and Henry Garland's classic Oxford Companion to German Literature substantially revises and extends its coverage, making an invaluable reference work available to a new generation of readers. Designed to be a reliable source of information on the whole sweep of literature from German-speaking countries from the eighth century onwards, the Companion now comes right up to the mid-1990s.

Contains brief biographical and critical entries on over 400 authors of fiction, poetry, and drama from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Contains brief biographical and critical entries on over 400 authors of fiction, poetry, and drama from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Contains brief biographical and critical entries on over 400 authors of fiction, poetry, and drama from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

In her comprehensive study of the German exile in Argentina from 1933 -1945, Olga Elaine Rojer examines a fascinating historical paradox: over 45,000 Germans fled the Nazis and settled in Argentina, the Nazi playground of South America. Yet the Germans, unwelcome and unsuited to life in exile, survived through an intricate support network of organizations, publishers, schools, journals, and even theatre. Rojer looks at Latin American life for the German-speaking exile, focusing on the literature produced by the refugees.

Richly textured and subtly argued, Spector's book focuses on a group of German-speaking Jewish writers in turn-of-the-century Prague, of whom Franz Kafka is the best known.

German Writers in Soviet Exile, 1933-1945 explores the lives and work of several dozen German Communist writers and cultural functionaries who were given asylum in Stalin's Russia when Hitler came to power in Germany. Based on extensive research in the archives of Moscow, East Berlin, and Budapest, and on interviews with survivors of the German Communist emigration to the USSR, David Pikes' account of the life of political exiles during the Stalin years describes the conditions under which German Communists were compelled to live and their pubic and private feelings toward thier "second fatherland." He discusses Soviet immigration policy and the travel restrictions placed on the Germans, takes an inside look at the German Section of the Soviet Writers' Union, and provides the first full account of the arrest of thousands of German Communists during the Stalinist purges. Other chapters center on the exiles' involvement in the Communist International's efforts to mobilize a particular form of pro-Soviet antifascism (and the effect upon it of the Moscow show trials), the Communists' perception of National Socialism, and the quality of their opposition to it. In this context Pike uses the nature of their commitment to Hitler's overthrow to question the motives, attitudes, and and ambitions of men whose outlook had been molded by their Soviet experience when they returned in 1945 to assume proxy control of East Germany. Another important chapter adds significantly to our knowledge of Soviet literary politics under Stalin. Drawing on unpublished material, as well as on the contemporary Soviet daily and periodical press, Pike examines the evolution of Georg Lukacs's literary and cultural-political theories in their relation to Soviet socialist realism. He shows for the first time how the realism debates of 1937 to 1939 between Lukacs, Bertolt Brecht, Hanns Eisler, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and others were manipulated in Moscow, and he suggests reasons for the downfall of the Lukacs-Lifshits "Trend" in Soviet literary criticism. Twenty-five eventful years are drawn together in this study. Because Pike sets his subject matter within a broad political and historical context, his book must be regarded as a meaningful contribution to several disciplines -- Soviet and German history, Communist studies in general, Soviet Russian literary politics, German exile studies, and the prehistory of the German Democratic Republic. Originally published in 1982. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Germany has become home to some 2.5 million people of Turkish background since mass recruitments in the 1960s and 1970s to man the "economic miracle." An increasingly settled Turkish German population now asserts a permanent place in Germany: over a third were born there, and a third have German citizenship. At the same time, Turkish German writers have become integral to the German literary scene. They include bestselling novelists Renan Demirkan and Akif Pirinçci; prestigious literary prize-winners Emine Sevgi Özdamar and Feridun Zaimoglu; and the critically acclaimed Aras Ören and Zafer Senocak.