From Kafka to Sebald

This wide-ranging, sophisticated anthology provides impetus to the renewed interest in a scholarly narratological approach to prose fiction. By drawing an ark between Franz Kafka and W. G. Sebald... Wilke projects a whole spectrum of diverse narrative experiments. Ten expert scholars contribute findings which can readily be applied to modern narratives beyond any single national literature. -- Guy Stern, Wayne State University, USA
From Kafka to Sebald is a thrilling contribution to the contemporary reinvigoration of narratology. What is more, it sheds light on the 'Kafka-effect' in German literature, by bringing Kafka's writing into dialogue with those who shared his Habsburg moment—Freud, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler—and then examining his legacy in authors such as Christa Wolf, Robert Menasse, and W.G. Sebald. The volume ultimately demonstrates deftly how modernism's formal innovations did not come out of thin air but were embedded profoundly in the historical traumas of twentieth-century Germany and Austria." -- John Zilcosky, Chair, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Toronto, Canada
"The topics of this volume—narrative, the subject, history, trauma—combine to produce a cultural autobiography, a self-account that the world of German-language writing has offered in the century of modernism.  Displaced from a problematic, self-described 'German' core, the authors discussed here demonstrate that the vitality of twentieth-century German literature derives from the richness and variety of writers who are, in the main, not at all (or not quite) German. Narrative becomes not only the vehicle but also the tenor of these essays. Autobiography describes how the subject is formed, whether in a novel by Christa Wolf or reflections by Walter Sokel; and it proposes a model for Kafka's "A Hunger Artist," or the 'small i' in Robert Menasse's work.  This volume, a fitting tribute to Richard Gray from scholars of equal eminence, will appeal to all who see in modernism a telling of reality of both great power and a terrible beauty." -- Ruth V. Gross, Professor of German and Chair, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, North Carolina State University, USA.
With Kafka and Sebald in the title as well as an alluring black-and-white photograph – taken from Sebald’s Austerlitz – on the dust jacket, this book immediately captures one’s curiosity. From Kafka to Sebald [brings] together nine contributions on German-language modernist fiction ... The nine articles trace specific developments in German-language fiction of the twentieth century and present a variety of approaches and perspectives … Taken together, the essays challenge the notion of narrative as a “universal structure” and illustrate how the “critique of narrative” encapsulates one of the defining aspects of twentieth-century modernist narrative forms … This volume’s overarching concern of narrative form within German-language modernist fiction will interest a broad spectrum of readers. -- Lynn L. Wolff * Monatshefte *
This collection of articles, written by well-known scholars, contributes to a literary analysis of historical practices without neglecting the aesthetic aspects. It illuminates various genres and demonstrates how narratives reflect societal practices symbolically and directly and how community norms are constituted and unconsciously internalized. On the whole, this useful collection serves the current interest in narration, as it brings together a number of different examples of literary interpretations in postmodern times from the genre point of view. -- Helga W. Kraft, University of Illinois at Chicago * Journal of Austrian Studies, Vol. 47, No. 1, Spring 2014 *