Review of: Thomas Martinec, Claudia Nitschke (Hg.): Familie und Identität in der deutschen Literatur. Frankfurt am Main u.a.: Peter Lang Verlag 2009. — Ariane Eichenberg: Familie – Ich – Nation. Göttingen: V&R unipress 2009.

Abstract

The topics of generation and family belong to the most important subjects of literary texts, especially when these problematize the development or the destruction of identity. A new conference volume edited by Claudia Nitschke and Thomas Martinec turns to the literary and cultural examination of these themes. Six decades after the end of the Second World War, the genre of the generational novel is enjoying a boom. This is particularly the case for those texts written by the third generation about their grandparents’ relationship to National Socialism. Ariane Eichenberg’s study, however, does not ascribe much influence to the authors of this new, heterogeneous genre. On the contrary, in their discoveries about the past these fashionable texts merely support the first-person narrator, their own feelings, and their self-confidence in a present marked by insecurities.