Biography Essay

When Mutmaßungen uber Jakob (translated as Speculations about Jakob, 1963), Uwe Johnson's first published novel, appeared in 1959, Johnson immediately became one of the most discussed and most controversial German authors. The novel displayed a virtuosity of language and narrative technique that was remarkable in a first publication, and it incorporated the fact of the division of Germany—and Europe—in a manner that was unprecedented in postwar German literature. Johnson's subsequent work maintained the technical brilliance and linguistic sophistication of Mutmaßiungen uber Jakob, and it continued to examine the juxtaposition of what Johnson called the "beiden Ordnungen, nach denen heute in der Welt gelebt werden kann" (two systems under which one can live in the world today). His persistence in examining the effects of this division on his characters garnered him the tides "poet of both Germanics" and "poet of divided...