With his flat tone, humdrum incidents and Angst-ridden characters, Berlin author Lutz Rathenow reproduces the effect of a political and social reality so banal and obtuse as to be beyond belief. His poetry is not poetry, but malformed prose seeking expression for the feeling of being spied upon by the moon. His plays are not plays, but paper-doll cutouts of Communist citizens with medals and platitudes pasted on. His stories are not stories, but curious crossbreeds of secret diary entries, dissident essays and cabaret lampoons. Bilingual edition (German and English). Translated by Boria Sax and Imogen von Tannenberg.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"The thematics of strangeness and estrangement are highly developed..." -- Collages & Bricolages, 2002
...surprising and absurd twists are what make Rathenow's writings compelling to read.... -- Collages and Bricolage, 2002
Rathenow's poetry is tight, metamorphic, and powerfully surreptitious. -- Rain Taxi Review of Books
a successful representation of the normality of the bizarre and the absurdity of the banal. -- Glossen, vol. 14
...surprising and absurd twists are what make Rathenow's writings compelling to read.... -- Collages and Bricolage, 2002
Rathenow's poetry is tight, metamorphic, and powerfully surreptitious. -- Rain Taxi Review of Books
a successful representation of the normality of the bizarre and the absurdity of the banal. -- Glossen, vol. 14
About the Author
Lutz Rathenow, born in 1952, served in the military as a young man and studied at the University of Jena, from which he was expelled in 1976 for protesting the expatriation of singer and songwriter Wolf Biermann. Moving to Berlin, he began his career as a writer, but was arrested in December 1980 after publishing his first collection of stories in the Federal Republic of West Germany. The book, like many to follow, was considered unflattering to the East German Democratic Republic. Released a month later after international protest, he continued to write satires, sketches and poems, refushing to emigrate and acting as a spokesman for dissident writers in the GDR. Inside the country his works were suppressed by the Ministry of Culture, but circulated privately. Such the pantomime "Keine Tragoedie" (No Tragedy), cancelled five days before its scheduled performance in Leipzig in 1984. Despite close surveillance by the Secret Police, he and his friends managed to smuggle manuscripts out to the West, where they were published. Outstanding among his books are "Boden 411" (Floor 411, 1984), a collection of short plays; "Die lautere Bosheit" (Outright Mischief, 1982), a collection of satires and short prose; and "Der Wettlauf mit dem Licht" (The Race with Light, 1999), a collection of poems, "Sisyphos" (1986), a collection of short stories published after the reunification of East and West Germany, received the Deutschland Prize. He lives with his family in Berlin.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A must for those who wonder what's going on in Germany,
This review is from: The Fantastic Ordinary World of Lutz Rathenow: Poems, Plays & Stories (Paperback)
You may read bookshelve-crushing amounts of printed matter on Germany with a special focus on the former GDR, yet you've missed a lot if you don't know Lutz Rathenow. Trying to find words in english without a dictionary at hand makes me feel how difficult the task to translate these pieces of art from german into english. Boris Sax has done quite well! Rathenow is neither easy to read, nor to understand - as is the reunited Germany of today. He's quite fascinating though, giving you the chance to reread once and again and still find something new in his poems and pieces of prose. Some typing errors - who cares? This booklet is a flashlight on Germany, what it was like in the eastern-bloc GDR and as it is still developing - sometimes painfully - today. The afterword is a masterpiece of its own - a brief outline on dark-red times. In there, Rathenow may appear like a shrewd businessman, but: Read the book, you'll love it! - A timeless piece of art. (He's just taking care of his family.)By the way: The "Zitronenbombe" on page 50 doesn't mean an ice bomb that people and especially children love, its the neutron bomb people and even children in the GDR were (made)scared of.
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