Exchanging Glances | Literary Criticism & Book Review

Exchanging Glances Critical Overview

"Exchanging Glances" got very little attention from critics when the English translation of What Remains and Other Stories appeared in 1993. The reasons for this have more to do with politics than literature. The eight pieces in What Remains represent nearly thirty years of Wolf s writing, and all but the title story had been published thirteen years earlier in German. The English translation included the controversial, and most recently written, title story, "What Remains."

This story stirred controversy in the West because of its depiction of a writer who discovers that her "apartment is shadowed by three frankfurter-munching members of the secret police," in the words of book reviewer Peter Demetz, writing in a review for the New York Times. Summarizing the reaction to the story, Demetz goes on to say that "it was certainly legitimate to ask whether Ms. Wolf was ill-advised to publish the story at...
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