ABSTRACT
In 1990, a debate erupted in Germany following the publication of Christa Wolf’s Was bleibt,1 a story in which Wolf describes how an authoress is spied on by the Stasi. Initially, the debate focused on whether or not Wolf, a supporter of the GDR to the last, was attempting self-exculpation by portraying herself as a victim. During this debate, which went on at least till 1992, the German newspapers reverberated with tales of Stasi collaboration on the part of former East German authors. This was the final proof, it seemed, that the relationship between literature and politics was fundamentally corrupted. Literary critics, notably Ulrich Greiner in Die Zeit, began to call for a literature liberated from the constraints of ‘Gesinnungsästhetik’. There is much to be said for releasing literature from the grip of politics. Arguably, a literature not teleologically tied to making political and social points is aesthetically freer, freer for experimentation.
