The power of language and silence: Reinhard Jirgl’s Die Stille

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Reinhard Jirgl (1953–) is an emphatically German author. He insists that German is “die Sprache in der ich denke, spreche und schreibe,”¹ and the award of several prestigious prizes (including the Büchner Prize in 2010) has confirmed his place in the German literary tradition. Yet Jirgl uses the German language in consistently and characteristically iconoclastic ways to challenge the authority of historical, political, and institutional discourse. Precisely because his work went against the ideological prescriptions of the East German state, it remained unpublished in the GDR, where Jirgl lived and worked. Since unification he has become a prolific author,...
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNew literary and linguistic perspectives on the German language, National Socialism, and the Shoah
EditorsPeter Davies , Andrea Hammel
Place of PublicationRochester
PublisherCamden House
Pages159-174
Number of pages15
ISBN (Electronic)9781782044642
ISBN (Print)9781571135971
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2014

Publication series

NameEdinburgh German yearbook
Volume8

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