ABSTRACT
Having studied in Munich and worked as a schoolteacher from 1935 to 1939 Rinser was forbidden to write by the Nazis in 1941 and was imprisoned in 1944 for treason and undermining military morale, an experience documented in her Gefängnis-Tagebuch (1946). Imprisonment remains an important theme in her later work, e.g. in the story Daniela (1946) and the novels Die Stärkeren (1948), Mitte des Lebens (1950), Der Sündenbock (1955) and Die vollkommene Freude (1962). Many of her novels and stories, e.g. Die gläsernen Ringe (1941), Erste Liebe (1946), Ich bin Tobias (1966), Mirjam (1983), concern the passage of women from childhood to adulthood with its attendant social and psychological adjustments and the search for a satisfying religious faith which takes the form of a left-wing Catholicism. The semi-autobiographical Mitte des Lebens (1950) and the epistolary novel Abenteuer der Tugend (1957) were combined in 1967 to form Nina, whose life from 1929 to 1948 and marriage to an alcoholic drug-addicted artist form the subjects of the two parts. Jan Lobel aus Warschau (1948) and sections of Die Stärkeren (1948) and Der schwarze Esel (1974) are set in the Third Reich. Die vollkommene Freude (1962) offers a further variation on the theme of conjugal devotion to a difficult partner. Rinser is also known for her diaries, Baustelle (1970), Grenzübergänge (1972), on the USSR and Poland, Kriegsspielzeug. Tagebuch 1972-78 (1978), Wenn die Wale kämpfen (1976), both on South Korea, Nordkoreanisches Tagebuch (1981), on North Korea, and Aufzeichnungen 1979-82. Winterfrühling (1982), Im Dunkel singen 1982-5 (1988), Wachsender Mond 1985-8 (1988) and Wir Heimatlosch 1989-92 (1992). Abaelards Liebe (1991) is a novel on the ill-starred medieval lovers. Wir Heimatlosen (1992) is a continuation of her diary, 1989-92, and Saturn auf der Sonne (1994) is the second part of her autobiography, begun with Den Wolf umarmen (1981).
