'This is an intelligent, well-written, and well-edited book. It offers compelling insights and raises interesting questions.' Edward T. Larkin, MONATSHEFTE 'Interesting, imaginative, well-written...' CHOICE

In receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999, Gunter Grass, a prominent and controversial figure in the ongoing discussion of the German past and reunification, finally gained recognition as Germany's greatest living author, a writer of international importance and acclaim. Grass's 1959 novel The Tin Drum remains one of the most important works of literature for the construction of postwar German identity. Peter Arnds offers a completely new reading of the novel, analyzing an aspect of Grass's literary treatment of German history that has never been examined in detail: the Nazi...

Wolfgang Borchert has been called -the most important voice of post-war German literature.- He came to fame literally overnight when his play Draussen vor der Tur (The Man Outside) was broadcast in the British zone of occupied Germany in February 1947 and evoked impassioned reactions both for and against. An examination of the plight of the returning soldier in the postwar world, it has become an icon of its time, capturing the futility of war and the true cost of the destruction in both physical and spiritual terms. Worldwide, Draussen vor der Tur has been produced more often than any other...

Walt Whitman's prolific Reconstruction project has remained the most uncultivated decade in Whitman studies for over a century. This first book-length analysis seeks to point the way for a needed recovery of Whitman's 1865-1876 publications by embedding them in the legislative discourse of black emancipation and its stormy aftermath. The supposed absence of race relations in Whitman's post-war texts has recently become a source of curiosity and denunciation. However, from 1865 to 1876, the Congressional 'workshop' was seeking to forge interracial civil rights legislation through surveillance...

Goebel studies four representative works by Kafka that explore the problems of the Western representation of the Orient: his 'Description of a Struggle'; several letters to Felice Bauer, offering an interpretation of Chinese poetry in connection with the conflict between writing and Kafka's love for Felice; the canonical story 'The Great Wall of China', parodically appropriating sterotypes of China's stagnant history and authoritarian emperors for a refutation of colonialist ideas of progress; and the sequel 'An Old Manuscript', dramatising China's invasion by foreign powers and the breakdown...

Annette von Droste-Hulshoff (1798-1848) remains Germany's foremost female author. Perhaps best known for her novella Die Judenbuche and her ballads, Droste's narrative ability in prose or verse, and her gift for forging highly crafted, often poignant lyrical works, have brought her continuing and growing critical acclaim. Recent critical interest has brought her new recognition as a forerunner in the struggle of women to find their own literary voices. This volume is the first comprehensive study in English of Droste's works and authorial career. It combines a broad view of her literary and...