The Wendish Research Exchange - Barker, Peter: Re-writing My Life and Work: Jurij Brězan’s Autobiographical Writings

Lětopis Abstract 2012 1: Barker, Peter: Re-writing My Life and Work: Jurij Brězan’s Autobiographical Writings

Jurij Brězan was the most important Sorbian writer of the 20th Century, who was known above all for his novels, a genre which before 1945 hardly existed in Sorbian literature. Despite his view that his most important task was the preservation of the Sorbian language and identity, he was a significant literary figure at national level in the GDR. His two most important autobiographical works, Mein Stück Zeit (1989, 2nd edition 1998) and Ohne Pass und Zoll (1999) illustrate the dilemmas of a socialist writer caught between politics and writing in the GDR who in the end gave up his belief in the power of literature to have a direct influence on politics.