Zwischen Heimatverlust und unsicherer Gegenwart: Sozialer Wandel in Zonenkinder (2002) von Jana Hensel und Scotch (2010) von Ioana Bradea

My paper will explore the interrelation between past, present and identity, as well as the dynamics of social change in contemporary German and Romanian literature, as exemplified by Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder (2002) and Ioana Bradea’s Scotch (2010). Both authors belong to a new generation of writers who, having experienced the collapse of the communist regime as adolescents, investigate the traumatic experience of change and adjustment to the social, economic and cultural realities of post-communist societies. While Hensel aims at recreating the lost Heimat (motherland) as an Erinnerungsraum (space of remembrance) and portraying the social tensions of the post-unification decade from an Eastern German perspective, Bradea focuses on depicting the desolate post-communist industrial landscape, as well as the everyday lives of anonymous Romanians caught in the vagaries of transition.