This is the first book in English to survey the Eastern German literary trend of employing
humor and satire to come to terms with experiences in the German Democratic Republic and after
the fall of the Berlin Wall. As sophisticated attempts to make sense of socialism's failure and
a difficult unification process these contemporary texts help define Germany today from a
specific Eastern German perspective. Grounded in politics and history ten humorous and
satirical novels are analyzed for their literary aesthetics and language cultural critiques
and socio-political insights. The texts include popular novels such as Thomas Brussig's Helden
wie wir Ingo Schulze's Simple Storys and Jens Sparschuh's Der Zimmerspringbrunnen as well as
lesser-known but equally relevant works like Schlehweins Giraffe by Bernd Schirmer and
Katerfrühstück by Erich Loest. A broad spectrum of humor and satire theories is applied to
probe texts from various angles and suggest multi-layered answers to the question of how these
literary modes function in postwall Germany to construct a specifically Eastern German
identity. Interviews the author conducted with five of the satirists are appended as primary
sources and contribute to the interpretation of the texts.
