Medea is among the most notorious women in the canon of Greek tragedy: a woman scorned who sacrifices her own children to her jealous rage. In her gripping new novel, Christa Wolf explodes this myth, revealing a fiercely independent woman ensnared in a brutal political battle.Medea, driven by her conscience to leave …
When The Quest for Christa T. was first published in East Germany ten years ago, there was an immediate storm: bookshops in East Berlin were given instructions to sell it only to well-known customers professionally involved in literary matters; at the annual meeting of East German Writers Conference, Mrs Wolf's new …
On a flawless spring day in late April, an East German writer awaits a call from the hospital where her brother is undergoing brain surgery and instead receives news of a massive nuclear accident at Chernobyl, one thousand miles away. In a potent, lyrical stream of thought, the narrator confronts both mortality and …