[E]xemplary . . . . [A]n outstanding contribution to the field of German studies, particularly the study of GDR history and culture . . . . Klocke's interdisciplinary study perfectly exemplifies the benefits of bringing historical research and literary analysis into fruitful dialogue with each other.
GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW
[A] valuable contribution for anyone who wants to learn ... Read moremore about the health-care system of the GDR, its underlying ideology, and the dominance it exerted over the individual patient through the lens of its socially engaged literature. The study as a whole succeeds in demonstrating the value of literature in complicating and expanding the collective memory archive, and shows the fruitfulness of a medical humanities approach to this corpus of texts.
Nina Schmidt
MODERN LANGUAGE REVIEW
Synthesizing historiographic research and literary analysis, [this book] offers a powerful interdisciplinary reading of the relationship between (East) German literature, social discourse, and the politics of health.
Caroline Summers
GERMANIC REVIEW
Sonia E. Klocke's book . . ., carefully researched and written in an easily readable English, makes a worthy contribution to Christa Wolf scholarship, to Body Studies, and not least to the discourse on the GDR in the collective imagination.
JAHRBUCH LITERATUR UND MEDIZIN
Klocke's combination of nuanced literary analysis and historical context demonstrates a particularly East German treatment of illness and the 'symptomatic' body . . . . She presents excellent insights not only into the earlier and later works of [Christa] Wolf, whom she regards as a 'historiographer' of the GDR, but also into the politicization of health under socialism and how literature interacted and interacts with medical discourse.
JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES
[A] lucidly written and convincingly argued study of selected literary works that critically portray aspects of GDR society and/or challenge representations in post-unification Germany that reduce the GDR to a 'Unrechtsstaat' (a state without rule of law). . . . [S]uccessfully claims a space for the continued critical study of East German literature and culture in the field of German studies.
Friederike Eigler
WOMEN IN GERMAN NEWSLETTER
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