SOURCE: “Force Fields: Who's Afraid of Christa Wolf? Thoughts on the Dynamics of Cultural Subversion,” in Salmagundi, No. 92, Fall, 1991, pp. 44–53.

In the following essay, Jay discusses public criticism of Wolf stemming from the publication of Was bleibt and allegations of her complicity with the former East German government.

1.

“Why not?,” asked our driver, as he jumped the curb and drove his little Trabant onto the thin strip of paved road between the still forbidding outer ramparts of what since 1961 had been known simply as “The Wall.” It was now July, 1990, eight months after it had been breached and the city it had separated reunited, but this was the first time he had been tempted to enter the former Todesstreifen or “deathstrip” that had encircled West Berlin. What only a short time ago was a no-man's-land patrolled by watchdogs and guarded by border police with automatic weapons was now...