The Editors: Arthur Williams (b. 1940) is Professor of Contemporary German Studies at the University of Bradford. Stuart Parkes (b. 1943) is Reader in German Studies at the University of Sunderland. Julian Preece (b. 1962) is Lecturer in German Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Together, they are editors of the previous volume in this series: Contemporary Writers, their Aesthetics and their Language (1996). Williams and Parkes are editors of The Individual, Identity and Innovation: Signals from contemporary Literature and the new Germany (1994), and (with Roland Smith) of German Literature at a Time of Change, 1989-1990: German Unity and German Identity in literary Perspective (1991) and Literature on the Threshold: The German Novel in the 1980s (1990).

Contents: Arthur Williams: Introduction: German-Language Literature after the Diversion - Holger Briel: The Mediality of Language: Hermann Burger's Blankenburg - Jonathan Long: History as Biography as Fiction: Wolfgang Hildesheimer's Marbot. Eine Biographie - Susan Tebbutt: Borderlines and Communication: Sten Nadolny's Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit - Julian Preece: 'Was Eigenes sagen': The many Autobiographies of Peter Wawerzinek - Arthur Williams: The elusive First Person Plural: Real Absences in Reiner Kunze, Bernd-Dieter Hüge, and W.G. Sebald - Stuart Parkes: The Language of the Past: Recent Prose Works by Bernhard Schlink, Marcel Beyer, and Friedrich Christian Delius - Robert Halsall: Language and Silence: Gerhard Roth's Die Archive des Schweigens - Dieter Stolz: Nomen est omen: Ein weites Feld by Günter Grass - Osman Durrani: From Monologue to Dialogue: The Case of Friedrich Christian Delius's Die Birnen von Ribbeck - David Barnett: Tactical Realisms: Rolf Hochhuth's Wessis in Weimar and Franz Xaver Kroetz's Ich bin das Volk - Bill Niven: A Play about Socialism? The Reception of Christoph Hein's Die Ritter der Tafelrunde - Ricarda Schmidt:'The Gender of Thought': Recollection, Imagination, and Eroticism in fictional Conceptions of East and West German Identity - Robert Gillett: 'Im Grunde komponiere ich ja ständig': The polyphonic Poetics of Lilian Faschinger - Felicity Rash: Verena Stefan twenty Years on: Aesthetic and linguistic Innovation in Wortgetreu ich träume and Es ist reich gewesen - Beth Linklater: 'wenn die stimme im körper spricht und tanzt': Gabriele Stötzer's Writing the Body - Axel Schalk: When Türmann dropped the Stone: The surreal Landscapes of Ernst Augustin's Novels - Helmut Peitsch: Communication, Generations, and Nation: Ulrich Woelk's Rückspiel - Matthias Uecker: 'Für Kultur ist es nie zu spät¿': Alexander Kluge's Television Productions - Hubert Lengauer: Pitting Narration against Image: Peter Handke's literary Protest against the Staging of Reality by the Media - Ralf Schnell: Less representative, but more distinctive: A tentative Assessment of the current State of German-Language Literature.

These essays by British, German, and Austrian scholars explore the salient features of a literature reviving after a period of de-stabilization which was at once political and aesthetic. German unity coincided with generational changes among writers, reappraisals of the role of literature in an era of 'post-modern' challenges, and reassessments of the historical roles of Austria and Switzerland. While writers from the former GDR are shown to be pre-occupied with that past and women writers with women's status in patriarchal societies, the essays reveal a sophisticated literature of the 1990s which harnesses the aesthetic forces of post-modernism in powerful statements of moral and human commitment. Many of the essays address works which have not previously been the subject of scholarly analysis. The writers discussed include: Ernst Augustin, Jurek Becker, Hermann Burger, Brigitte Burmeister, Friedrich Christian Delius, Lilian Faschinger, Günter Grass, Peter Handke, Christoph Hein, Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Rolf Hochhuth, Bernd-Dieter Hüge, Alexander Kluge, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Reiner Kunze, Monika Maron, Heiner Müller, Sten Nadolny, Christoph Ransmayr, Gerhard Roth, W.G. Sebald, Verena Stefan, Gabriele Stötzer, Peter Wawerzinek, Ulrich Woelk.