Monika Maron: Love and writing in a political climate

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between the love story and official history in Animal triste by the German novelist Monika Maron. Despite suggestions that the love story could have happened at any time or place, a strong case can be made for a special interwovenness of the personal and the political in this Wende novel. Timelessness thus gives way to the intertwinement of a love story with a period in history, the Wende, the period of political change in Germany in 1989-1990. On the other hand, the love story's political dimensions contribute to another form of timelessness, a kind of religious belief in the eternity of love. Before discussing Animal triste, I trace the relationship between love and politics in Maron's earlier novels.