Suicide in East German literature,

摘要

Somewhat unusually, Blankenship begins his book with a broadside against those who see fictional representations of suicides in GDR literature merely as a reflection of a major social issue which the authorities were keen to sweep under the carpet. By contrast, he states his intention of showing the literary qualities of a number of such representations, claiming that a literary approach could be more subversive than journalistic writing. As for the issue of suicide itself, he suggests that it was not as widespread as often believed and that only a minority of suicides were for political reasons. In keeping with this stance, he even goes beyond his main subject by taking issue with the highly successful film The Life of Others in which suicide is invariably linked to politics. Whilst there is undoubted merit in the desire to look at his subject differently, the role of literature as a substitute for the lack of a public sphere in the GDR remains important. Equally, there were politically motivated suicides even at the highest level, most notably that of the head of the State Planning Commission, Erich Apel, in 1965. Blankenship is in fact prone to overstating his case, as will be seen below.