What do you think?
Rate this book
Was ist eigentlich los?: Ausgewählte Essays aus vier Jahrzehnten
Zum 80. Geburtstag von Monika Maron am 3. Juni 2021: Ausgewählte Essays aus vier Jahrzehnten von einer großen Schriftstellerin, die immer schon zu aktuellen Debatten und gesellschaftspolitischen Themen Stellung bezog und die sich nie vereinnahmen ließ. Poetisch, elegant, humorvoll und unerschrocken.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published May 5, 2021
4 people want to read
About the author
Monika Maron
44 books64 followersMonika Maron is a German author, formerly of the German Democratic Republic. She moved in 1951 from West to East Berlin with her stepfather, Karl Maron, the GDR Minister of the Interior.
She studied theatre and spent time as a directing assistant and as a journalist. In the late 1970s, she began writing full-time in East Berlin. In her early novels written in East Berlin, her primary theme was life and loathing inside a totalitarian surveillance state. But despite Maron's criticism of the GDR regime, it turned out that she had worked as an informer for the Ministry of State Security, or Stasi — a fact that she addressed in her 1999 novel, Pawels Briefe (Pawel's Letters).
She left the GDR in 1988 with a three-year visa. After living in Hamburg, Germany, until 1992, she returned to a reunited Berlin, where she currently lives and writes.
Her works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the threats posed both by memory and isolation. Her prose is sparse, bleak, and lonely, conveying the sensitivity and desperation of her narrators.
In 1992, she was distinguished with the renowned Kleist Prize, awarded annually to prominent German authors, and, in 2003, with the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize.
Her latest novel, Artur Lanz (2020), delves into the emasculation of men as "heroes," and the evolution of "cancel culture" in a liberal mainstream that polices speech and opinions. Maron's characters' views on gender, immigration and Islam made some wonder if the once leftist writer had become Islamophobic or anti-feminist. Maron has also railed against the "gender gibberish" of woke liberals in political essays. She has criticized an "unenlightened Islam" and warned against "tolerance in the face of intolerance." Her political rhetoric echoes the far-right AFD party. Is the opinionated author turning herself into a mouthpiece for the alt right?
"I say what I think," she explained in an interview with public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. "I arrive at my convictions or opinions by looking at the world or reading about it, or by weighing one opinion against another and somehow orienting myself. Whether that's right-wing or not doesn't matter to me in the end."
She studied theatre and spent time as a directing assistant and as a journalist. In the late 1970s, she began writing full-time in East Berlin. In her early novels written in East Berlin, her primary theme was life and loathing inside a totalitarian surveillance state. But despite Maron's criticism of the GDR regime, it turned out that she had worked as an informer for the Ministry of State Security, or Stasi — a fact that she addressed in her 1999 novel, Pawels Briefe (Pawel's Letters).
She left the GDR in 1988 with a three-year visa. After living in Hamburg, Germany, until 1992, she returned to a reunited Berlin, where she currently lives and writes.
Her works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the threats posed both by memory and isolation. Her prose is sparse, bleak, and lonely, conveying the sensitivity and desperation of her narrators.
In 1992, she was distinguished with the renowned Kleist Prize, awarded annually to prominent German authors, and, in 2003, with the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize.
Her latest novel, Artur Lanz (2020), delves into the emasculation of men as "heroes," and the evolution of "cancel culture" in a liberal mainstream that polices speech and opinions. Maron's characters' views on gender, immigration and Islam made some wonder if the once leftist writer had become Islamophobic or anti-feminist. Maron has also railed against the "gender gibberish" of woke liberals in political essays. She has criticized an "unenlightened Islam" and warned against "tolerance in the face of intolerance." Her political rhetoric echoes the far-right AFD party. Is the opinionated author turning herself into a mouthpiece for the alt right?
"I say what I think," she explained in an interview with public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. "I arrive at my convictions or opinions by looking at the world or reading about it, or by weighing one opinion against another and somehow orienting myself. Whether that's right-wing or not doesn't matter to me in the end."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
No one has reviewed this book yet.