Identitätskonstrukte in Texten junger ostdeutscher Autoren nach 1989/1990

Zu Kerstin Hensel: »Tanz am Kanal« (1994)

Abstract

Since the German reunification biographical, personal identities and various forms of collective identity have become the focus of increased attention. However, the ways in which identity is constructed and which role various forms of representation play in this construction has remained surprisingly underresearched. Using the example of Kerstin Hensel's Tanz am Kanal (1994) and employing postcolonial theory, the present paper will demonstrate how narrative patterns not only reflect social structures, but shape and indeed create these structures. Hensel purposely avoids the conflation of authorial and narrative voice, and thus invents new stories with new memories and identities. She is thus able to show that identity and the quest for identity are not constant in either content or intensity; rather, they remain in perpetual change.