Preface

Summary

Parts of this study draw on my previously published material, which I have expanded, revised, and updated. I am grateful to the publishers for permission to utilize that material:

Border Crossings: An Introduction to East German Prose. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1993.

“Stephan Hermlin's Negotiation of Jewish/Communist/German Identity.” In Transcultural German Studies/Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Building Bridges/Brücken bauen, edited by Steven D. Martinson and Renate A. Schulz, 120–31. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.

“Stefan Heym and the Negotiation of Socialist-Jewish Identity.” In Stefan Heym: Socialist—Dissenter—Jew/Stefan Heym: Sozialist—Dissident—Jude, edited by Peter Hutchinson and Reinhard K. Zachau, 145–60. New York: Peter Lang, 2003.

In order to try to reach students and scholars of Holocaust studies, Judaic studies, comparative literature, and history, as well as those in German literature and German studies, I have translated quotations from German into English or used English translations when readily accessible. The original German is available in the footnotes. Titles of published translations are included in parentheses and capitalized headline-style, while unpublished translations are capitalized sentence-style.

I thank my colleagues and graduate students in the Department of Modern Languages and Classics at the University of Alabama, as well as former Dean of Arts and Sciences, Robert Olin, for their support over the years. Jim Walker of Camden House has been, as always, a patient and supportive editor. The two anonymous readers made numerous detailed and welcome suggestions for improvement that I have attempted to integrate as well as possible.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to my friends for their endless help: Stephen Brett, Nancy Carson and Michael Conaway, Melissa Kent and Paul Toppins, Paige and Mark McCormick, Jon and Lane McLelland, Catherine Roach and Ted Trost. I am especially grateful to my wife Tanusha. This book is dedicated to my family: Christopher, Eva, Katharina, and Tanusha.