Voices East and West : German short stories since 1945 /

Norton's purpose is to introduce representative authors of East and West Germany to an English-speaking audience. The 14 East German writers command much more space than their 12 West German colleagues, perhaps reflecting a personal bias on the editor's part. If that is the case, the selection of writers from East Germany is even more puzzling. A number of relatively unknown writers have somehow found their way into this collection, and many prominent and deserving figures (e.g., Fritz Rudolf Fries, Franz Fuhmann, Hermann Kant, Irmtraud Morgner, and Erwin Strittmatter) have apparently been overlooked. Furthermore, not one of the many East German writers who moved to the West in the past decade is represented. Why not? Jurek Becker, Karl-Heinz Jakobs, Bernd Jentzsch, Sarah Kirsch, Gunter Kunert, and Reiner Kunze are among East Germany's best writers of short fiction. As for the West German authors, one can only wonder at the inclusion of Wolfgang Borchert (d. 1947) in a collection of this sort. The translations are adequate, but they are uninspired and do not really do justice to the German originals. And much more could have been said about the German short story and its development in the introduction, which this reviewer did not find very helpful. Needed only by comprehensive collections of German literature in translation.-R.A. Zipser, Oberlin College