Lyn Marven & Andrew Plowman 
The Short Story in German in the Twenty-First Century 

Since the 1990s, the short story has re-emerged in the German-speaking world as a vibrant literary genre, serving as a medium for both literary experimentation and popular forms. Authors like Judith Hermann and Peter Stamm have had a significant impact on German-language literary culture and, in translation, on literary culture in the UK and USA. This volume analyzes German-language short-story writing in the twenty-first century, aiming to establish a framework for further research into individual authors as well as key themes and formal concerns.

An introduction discusses theories of the short-story form and literary-aesthetic questions. A combination of thematic and author-focused chapters then discuss key developments in the contemporary German-language context, examining performance and performativity, Berlin and crime stories, and the openendness, fragmentation, liminality, and formal experimentations that characterize short stories in the twenty-first century. Together the chapters present the rich field of short-story writing in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, offering a variety of theoretical approaches to individual stories and collections, as well as exploring connections with storytelling, modernist short prose, and the novella. The volume concludes with a survey of broad trends, and three original translations exemplifying the breadth of contemporary German-language short-story writing.

Table of Content

List of Illustrations

Note on Translations

Introduction to the Contemporary Short Story in German –
Andrew Plowman, Lyn Marven, and Kate Roy

Chapter 1: Berlin Shorts: The German Capital in the Short Story of the Twenty-First Century –
Katharina Gerstenberger

Chapter 2: The German Crime Story in the Twenty-First Century –
Todd Herzog

Chapter 3: Performance, Performativity, and the Contemporary German
Kurzgeschichte –
Emily Spiers

Chapter 4: Cramped Spaces, Creative Bottlenecks: Sudabeh Mohafez’s
das zehn-zeilen-buch and the Short-Short –
Kate Roy

Chapter 5: Bodo Kirchhoff’s
Widerfahrnis: A
Novelle for Our Time? –
Helmut Schmitz

Chapter 6: The Liminal Space of the Short Story: Clemens Meyer’s
Die Nacht, die Lichter and
Die stillen Trabanten –
Gillian Pye

Chapter 7: Framing the Presence: Judith Hermann’s
Lettipark –
Leonhard Herrmann

Chapter 8: Of Unhomed Subjects and Unsettled Voices: Alois Hotschnig’s
Die Kinder beruhigte das nicht –
Heide Kunzelmann

Chapter 9: Literary Development and Rewriting Spaces in the ‘Complete Stories’: Peter Stamm’s
Der Lauf der Dinge –
Andrew Plowman

Chapter 10: On Disappearing: Reading Ulrike Almut Sandig with Sylvia Bovenschen –
Heike Bartel and Elizabeth Boa

Chapter 11: Metamorphic Becomings: Yoko Tawada’s
Opium für Ovid: Ein Kopfkissenbuch von 22 Frauen –
Áine Mc Murtry

Chapter 12: Melinda Nadj Abonji and Jurczok 1001: Performance, Politics, and Poetry –
Rafaël Newman and Caroline Wiedmer

Chapter 13: Rhizomatic Wanderings: The Writings of Gabriele Petricek –
Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger

Chapter 14: Trends and Issues in the Contemporary German-Language Short Story –
Lyn Marven

Appendix: Contemporary German-Language Short Stories in Translation

Sudabeh Mohafez, A Short-Short Selection –
Translated by Kate Roy

Roman Ehrlich, ‘Engineers of Time’ –
Translated by Lyn Marven

Saša Stanišić, ‘The Factory’ –
Translated by Lyn Marven

Bibliography of Primary Texts

Notes on Contributors

About the author

Katharina Gerstenberger is associate professor of German at the University of Cincinatti.