The reader and the writer : essays, sketches, memories / by Christa Wolf ; translated by Joan Becker.

Electronic access edition is in the original German.

Part I. Plain German -- A speech -- Twenty-five years -- Vietnam experiment --

Part II. Changing viewpoint -- On a date -- Brecht and others -- The meaning of a new thing - Vera Inber -- Diary - aid to work and memory -- Interview with myself --

Part III. Truth that can be faced - Ingeborg Bachmann's prose -- Remembrance and memorial - Fred Wander: The seventh well --

Part IV. Faith in the terrestrial -- A visit to Anna Seghers --

Part V. The snapdragon -- The reader and the writer --

Postscript by Hans Stubbe, meeting Christa Wolf.

"The Reader and the Writer consists of a number of essays and prose pieces by a leading writer of the German Democratic Republic and a concluding portrait of the author by biogeneticist, Hans Stubbe. 'Writing,' says Christa Wolf in the title essay, 'is only one operation in a more complex process to which we give the splendid name of living.' Her concern for literature's function within the context of life is a theme that runs through all her pieces. Whether she is describing the simple heroism of people she has encountered or reminiscences of a darker past or a visit to a biogeneticist at his research center her sense of vitality, honest quest for answers and warmth of personality are always present. Essays on other writers include those on Bertolt Brecht, Vera Inber, Ingeborg Bachmann, Fred Wander and Anna Seghers who come alive first as people land as writers whose works express the profound commitment of their lives. Another is a sketch that recalls a date in 1948 when she read her first Marxist book, Engels on Feuerbach, in which she underlined: 'In the place of moribund reality comes a new viable reality. That was the process which was to fill my life...'" -- From the back cover.

From the library of Karl and Elizabeth Niebyl.

Translation of Lesen und Schreiben from the German.