Christa Wolf

born March 18, 1929, Landsberg an der
Warthe, Germany [now Gorzów
Wielkopolski, Poland]
German novelist, essayist, and
screenwriter most often associated with
East Germany.
Wolf was reared in a middle-class,
pro-Nazi family. With the defeat of
Germany in 1945, she moved with her
family to East Germany. She studied at
the Universities of Jena and Leipzig
(1949–53), thereafter working as editor
of the East German Writers’ Union
magazine and as a reader for book
publishers. After 1962 she was a
full-time writer.
Wolf’s first novel was Moskauer
Novelle (1961; “Moscow Novella”). Her
second novel, Der geteilte Himmel (1963;
Divided Heaven; filmed 1964),
established her reputation. This work
explores the political and romantic
conflicts of Rita and Manfred. He
defects to West Berlin for greater
personal and professional freedom; she,
after a brief stay with him, rejects the
West and returns to East Berlin. The
novel brought Wolf political favour.
Nachdenken über Christa T. (1968; The
Quest for Christa T.) concerns an
ordinary woman who questions her
socialist beliefs and life in a
socialist state and then dies
prematurely of leukemia. Though well
received by Western critics, the novel
was severely attacked by the East German
Writers’ Congress, and its sale was
forbidden in East Germany.
Wolf’s other works include
Kindheitsmuster (1976; A Model
Childhood), a semiautobiographical
account of growing up in the Third
Reich; Till Eulenspiegel (1972; filmed
1974), which interprets the folk legend
from a Marxist point of view; Kassandra
(1983; Cassandra), an inner monologue
that associates nuclear power with
patriarchal power; Was bleibt (1990;
What Remains), an account of the
surveillance practices of the East
German government, in which Wolf
implicates herself; Störfall (1987;
Accident: A Day’s News), which
juxtaposes the Chernobyl disaster with
the narrator’s brother’s brain tumour
operation; Auf dem Weg nach Tabou (1997;
Parting from Phantoms: Selected
Writings, 1990–1994); Medea: A Novel
(1998); and Leibhaftig (2002; In the
Flesh), in which the narrator
experiences a health crisis that
parallels the disintegration of the East
German state. The memoir Ein Tag im
Jahr: 1960–2000 (2003; One Day a Year)
was a project 40 years in the making.
Once each year, on September 27, Wolf
recorded her thoughts on her life and
surroundings, and the book provides a
unique look at East Germany from the
rise of the Berlin Wall to the
post-unification period.