Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century by Lyn Marven and Stuart Taberner (review)

Although scarcely a decade old, German-language literature of the twenty-first century has already received extensive treatment in scholarly literature. Numerous studies circumscribe this literary field thematically, highlighting new trends such as globalization and new approaches to familiar topics, such as German national identity, Jewish-German relations, writing by women, or minority and migrant voices. What sets the impressive collection of essays in Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century apart is that the primary focus is not on recurring themes but rather on the individual works of emerging writers, who have “debuted or come to particular prominence during the first decade of the new millennium” (10). Each of the fifteen informative chapters focuses on a major work within the context of the author’s oeuvre and of broader literary and theoretical trends. Two appendices whet the reader’s appetite for this emerging literature with first-time English translated excerpts from Juli Zeh’s Spieltrieb and Clemens Meyer’s Als wir träumten, novels also treated in the analyses. With its unique approach, Marven and Taberner’s volume introduces readers to talented but perhaps less-known authors who will help shape German-language literature in the new millennium, while it also gives readers a sense of contemporary literary currents such as those listed above.

Lyn Marven’s exceptional introduction lays the groundwork for the project’s goal and approach. The stated objective is to introduce “a larger number of less-known authors and texts to an international audience” (2) with limited access to such texts. The international focus fittingly describes the styles and themes of the novels themselves, which Marven describes as “globalized hypertexts” (2). The selected works reflect the globalization of the novel as a literary form through their cosmopolitan plots and content, their language, and the wide-ranging international discourses they reference, including music, photography, cinema, science, sports, and literature from the Arabian Nights, Dostoevsky, and the Bible to Lonely Planet travel guides. The novels also capture the new sense of the “glocal,” meaning that they reflect the specific literary historiography of German-language literature and local concerns in an interplay with the global context. In discussing the approach to this project, the introduction guides readers through contemporary currents and literary trends since the 1990s in terms of themes and styles that the subsequent analyses will reinforce. One of the most insightful issues Marven addresses is the methodological challenge of dealing with “ultracontemporary literature” (9) by authors with little or no established reputation or textual history. The reflection on how novels were selected for this volume offers valuable insights into the pertinent question of how to find, assess, and select contemporary texts.

Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century masterfully fulfills its objectives. The carefully selected texts and insightful analyses deliver a solution to the problem of “how do you find it” by introducing the reader to the most current authors, literature, and literary trends and by giving them the tools to explore further. The structure of the fifteen informative chapters further contributes to the volume’s success. A typical chapter begins with a short introduction to the author, describes his or her rise to literary prominence, places the primary text in the context of previous work, and offers an in-depth analysis that often challenges previous readings. For example, in chapter 2 Stuart Taberner examines notions of “performing Jewishness” (34) in the work of Austrian/Russian/Jewish writer Vladimir Vertlib. His insightful rereading of Das besondere Gedächtnis der Rosa Masur challenges the reception of Vertlib’s work as a successful liberal discourse of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism to show instead how the author’s complex, multilayered fiction highlights the ambivalent situation of Jews in Germany and Austria in the twenty-first century. This rereading allows Taberner to demonstrate how Vertlib’s work intervenes in the “fascination for things Jewish” (33) in contemporary German-language culture and...