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The image of the solitary author devoting days and nights to writing endless bestselling novels remains an insidious and largely unchallenged myth within German culture. In this exacting examination of the German publishing industry, Agency and Author addresses the financial reality sometimes eclipsed by this idea. Focusing on lesser-known German-language writers and their interactions with the Literaturbetrieb (“literary scene”), Agency and Author explores the ways authors assert creative agency in an increasingly ‘eventized’ literary marketplace. Ranging from the impacts of literary awards to media hate campaigns, this volume spotlights how profoundly the German literary landscape and our understanding of authorship is transforming.
Rachel J. Halverson is Professor of German and Director of the School of Global Studies at the University of Idaho. A specialist in post-war and post-unification German literature and culture, she has published research on the Historikerstreit, as well as the works of Siegfried Lenz, Jurek Becker, Günter de Bruyn, and Martina Hefter, among others. In addition to journal articles and book chapters, she has co-edited three anthologies: Textual Responses to German Unification (2001) and Berlin: The Symphony Continues (2004), with Carol Anne Costabile-Heming and Kristie Foell; and Taking Stock of German Studies in the United States: The New Millennium (2015), with Costabile-Heming.
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Contemporary German-Language Literary Landscape: Aesthetics, Market Forces, Visibility
Rachel J. Halverson and Benjamin D. Schaper
Chapter 1. Refugees en Vogue: Weiter Schreiben and the Transformation of the German Literary Landscape
Karin Bauer
Chapter 2. Poetry, Publisher, Prizes and Performance: Explaining the Success of Poet and Performer Martina Hefter
Rachel J. Halverson
Chapter 3. Prizes and Prestige in Germany’s Production of Contemporary Literature: The Literary Awards Which Do (Not) Affect the Bestseller List
Bethany Morgan
Chapter 4. “Jetzt bin ich im Elfenbeinturm”: On Stefanie Sargnagel’s Underground Literature, Media Hate Campaigns, and the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis
Sarah Koellner
Chapter 5. First the Beating, then the Book Deal: Shahak Shapira’s German-Jewish Voice
Jonathan Blake Fine
Chapter 6. Writing Precarity in theLiteraturbetrieb: Globalization in Heike Geißler’sSaisonarbeit (2014)
Katrina L. Nousek
Chapter 7. Author in the Making: The Balancing Act of Benedict Wells
Benjamin D. Schaper
Chapter 8. Wolf Haas: A Poster Child for the National Brand Austria?
Rebecca Wismeg-Kammerlander
Conclusion: Authors and Agency: Charting the New Frontier
Benjamin D. Schaper and Rachel J. Halverson