Christa Wolf's literary career began and flourished in the GDR where she was more often out of than in favor after 1965 and, after an initial low point, continued to flourish in a reunified Germany. Her writing is about negotiation, coming to terms with contradictions, dealing with the unavoidable disappointments that follow any idealistic engagement, and about human beings with ideals living in a world that demands compromises. It is about working toward a personal sense of integrity that takes into account but is not beholden to, external notions of justice. After the fall of the Wall, she continued to work on being a public intellectual in a western world in which the East German public intellectual in particular was often relegated to the margins of public discourse by the media.…
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Citation: Cormican, Muriel. "Christa Wolf". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 October 2006; last revised 06 February 2019. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5430, accessed 21 November 2024.]
