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Christa Wolf was born on March 18,
1929 in Landsberg/Warthe, today Gorzó Wielkopolski in Poland. In 1945
she moved to Mecklenburg, and in 1949 she graduated from high school
and joined the SED, the former East German Communist Party. She studied
German literature in Jena and Leipzig. Later she became a
member of the German Writers' Association, working as editor of the
magazine "Neue deutsche Literatur" and chief editor of Neues Leben
publishing house. In 1961 she published her first prose work, "Moscow
Novella". The book was well received in the GDR, but not published in
the Federal Republic. Since that time she has worked as a freelance
author. Her first big success was the novel "Divided Heaven",
which deals with the divided Germany. The book won her the prestigious
East German Heinrich Mann Prize, and was made into a movie by East
German filmmaker Konrad Wolf in 1964.
From 1963 to 1967, Christa
Wolf was a candidate of the Central Committee of the SED, but resigned
after giving a critical speech. In 1974 she became a member of the East
German Academy of Arts, and from 1981 on was also a member of the
Academy of Arts in West Berlin. In 1976 she spoke out against the
denaturalisation of singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann. She was allowed to
travel freely, and gave visiting lectures in the Federal Republic,
Italy, Scotland, Switzerland and the USA starting 1978.
In 1983,
her book "Cassandra" appeared, dealing with the conflict between the
sexes. The book made her an all-German author and was her biggest
international success. In 1987 she was also presented the 1st Class
National Prize of the GDR. Two years later, in June 1989, she left the
Communist Party – five months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In
1990 she published "What Remains", a strongly autobiographical short
story documenting her supervision by the Ministry for State Security.
The book initiated a discussion on the complicity of intellectuals in
the misanthropical conditions of the GDR. Christa Wolf was attacked in
the West as a "hypocrite" and "state poet", whereupon she retired from
public life.
1993 brought a further benchmark. Christa Wolf
acknowledged she had been an unofficial informant for the Ministry for
State Security. She herself published the files documenting her
engagement at this time. In all, Christa Wolf has written over thirty
books, radio plays and film scenarios. In 1996 her novel "Medea"
appeared. As with "Cassandra" it adopts the narrative voice of a figure
from the world of ancient mythology.
In 2003 her book "Ein Tag
im Jahr" (one day in the year) appeared, comprising her minutes from the day on each
September 27th over the past four decades.
*
The biography originally appeared in German in Die Zeit on September 29, 2005.
Translation: jab.
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