Abstract:

de Based on the observation that since the turn of the millennium many German authors deal with the literary topos of islands, this paper focuses on three recent novels that take place on small islands off the German coast: Die Insel by Matthias Wegehaupt (2005) draws a precise picture of the socialist reorganization of a fictitious island in GDR times. The possibility of an idyllic retreat for artists oscillates continuously with a claustrophobic battle with the political dictatorship. Kruso by Lutz Seiler (2014) is situated on Hiddensee shortly before the Berlin wall came down. The island is depicted as a haven for refugees who don’t leave the country. They enjoy an exceptional freedom, but are again part of a tight system with expropriating measures, which questions whether any organization of a utopia can exclude dystopian traits. Insel 34 by Annette Pehnt (2003) takes place at the northern coast of Germany, where a young woman longs for the most remote island of a (fictitious) archipelago. Her voyage along the closer islands results in the insight that the last one can only remain a utopian place if it is never visited. The three utopian-dystopian sketches in the novels rely on the prototypical characteristics of islands as limited and limiting spaces with restricted access and exit, whose model size is suitable for all kinds of sociopolitical, geobiological or psychological experiments. The analysis aims to show how utopian and dystopian aspects in each text are differently intertwined, in ways that construct as well as deconstruct each other.

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