Inga Iwasiów: Bambino (2008)
TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 Excerpts from the novel, translated by Karolina Hicke and Karolina May-Chu[1] Download Here ULA, BORN 1930 Ula is of course a Polonized name. Ulrike, that’s what it said in her papers, before she buried them deeply. Father never called her anything else, not when he was on leave, which ended […]
Introduction to the Translation
TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 Karolina May-Chu Download PDF Introduction to the Translation[1] Inga Iwasiów, born in 1963 in Szczecin, is a renowned Polish writer, feminist literary scholar, and activist. As co-translators, Karolina Hicke and I are happy to present here two non-consecutive chapters from Iwasiów’s debut novel Bambino (2008) in a first-time English translation. […]
Goethetak!
(Mäandraas Nachlied oder post-Maulfall vom Stürzchen aufs Frätzchen und das Kennerfleisch der Literatur so kopflos) TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 Dagmara Kraus Download PDF 1 „Gołe zwierzę“ Wir versprühten gerade kubikliterweise Kerosin hinter Marseille, das am Morgen als funkelnder Nieselregen über der bleiartigen Fischsuppe unter uns niederging, da kamen mir, mit Standpunkt im Wind, spontan […]
liedvoll, deutschyzno moja
TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 Dagmara Kraus Annotated by Karolina May-Chu and Paula Wojcik Download PDF liedvoll, deutschyzno moja[i] 1 millionen flüchtige wörter stehen ander grenze zu diesem gedichtdie beine in den bauch sichschlange an der grenze dunkle wörter, dunkle fremdesuchen nach zuflucht, wollen hier wohnenverjaschmakt,[ii] betschadort,[iii] da wartenmummen[iv] von jenseits der pole ‘sind welche […]
Contested Memory and Narrative within GDR-Polish Intercultural Landscapes: Ursula Höntsch’s Wir Flüchtlingskinder (1985) and Wir sind keine Kinder mehr (1990)
TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 Jean E. Conacher Download PDF Abstract Over centuries, the mutual existence of German- and Polish-speaking communities formed expansive cultural borderlands stretching down from the southern Baltic coast across frequently moving, and at times aggressively enforced, political dividing lines. The 1945 Potsdam Agreement saw the establishment of the Oder-Neisse line, only […]
Train Journeys in Postmemorial Narratives of Heimatverlust: Reinhard Jirgl’s Die Unvollendeten and Sabrina Janesch’s Katzenberge
TRANSIT vol. 14, No. 1 Sabine Egger Download PDF Abstract In the last two decades, flight and expulsion have emerged as critical topics in contemporary German literature and culture, with authors exploring narrative modes in literary texts that open transnational perspectives. Reinhard Jirgl’s Die Unvollendeten (2003) and Sabrina Janesch’s Katzenberge (2010) are examples of such […]
The Reconciliatory Potential of Objects in Stefan Chwin’s novel Death in Danzig
TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova Download PDF Abstract This article examines the artistic rendering of post-German objects in Stefan Chwin’s 1995 novel Hanemann [Death in Danzig] through the lens of new materialism theories. In his depiction of the historical transformation of Danzig/Gdansk from a German to a Polish city Chwin applies two strategies: […]
Remembering and Remapping Breslaff: Resurfacing German and Queer Topographies in Contemporary Polish Literature
TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 Alicja Kowalska Download PDF Abstract This article focuses on the role of contemporary Polish literature in bringing back that which has been repressed under communism: the Germanness of the so-called “regained territories”, i.e. territories that became Polish due to the changes of national borders after the Second World War, as […]
Introduction: German-Polish Borderlands in Contemporary Literature and Culture
TRANSIT vol. 14, no.1 Download PDF Karolina May-Chu and Paula Wojcik In this issue of TRANSIT, we are proud to present a special section with contributions on the representation of borders and borderlands in the literary and cultural landscapes of Germany and Poland. We have brought together scholarship, excerpts from an essayistic historical study, a […]
Lessons from the Southern German Borderlands
TRANSIT vol. 14, no. 1 H. Glenn Penny Download PDF Abstract This essay engages the borderlands region joining contemporary Austria, Germany, and Switzerland as a ‘central periphery’ in the heart of Europe. As a region in which multiple and varied notions of belonging have long stretched across the borders that animate our modern political maps, […]