Schreiben ex patria: W.G. Sebald und die Konstruktion einer literarischen Identität

Publisher： Rodopi

ISSN： 0304-6257

Source： Amsterdamer Beiträge zur neueren Germanistik, Vol.72, Iss.1, 2009-11, pp. : 27-44

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Abstract

In Vertigo the reader witnesses the construction of a literary persona, the transformation of a first person narrator who has discarded his identifiably German identity in favour of the hybrid author-narrator W.G. Sebald, a name with a set of initials in the English literary tradition. Rings of Saturn presents another aspect of the expatriate writer's experience, namely the project to discover and explore his new home. In the process, a double narrative perspective emerges that allows him to connect historical and cultural phenomena from both home countries that result in original, unexpected discoveries. The expatriate experience also offers the writer a privileged position in terms of dealing with the German past, notably with regard to the representation of Jewish life in a country in which the consciousness of a previous Jewish communal presence has been all but eradicated from memory.