‘Refugees’ nightmares’: Motives of escape and anxiety in Gertrud Leutenegger’s novel "Späte Gäste" (2020)

Ewa Górska


(Poland)

Dorota Sośnicka

dorota.sosnicka@usz.edu.pl
University of Szczecin (Poland)

Abstract

Gertrud Leutenegger’s latest novel Späte Gäste [The Late Guests] (2020) revolves around the theme of love and death – like many of her earlier books. At the same time, however, various motives of escaping and saving life or starting a new life, as well as the fear and anxieties associated with them, come to the fore. This novel with an autobiographical tinge is, on the one hand, a kind of farewell to a deceased loved one, – whose aggression, however, the nameless first-person narrator had to escape from, and on the other hand, it draws special attention to the highly relevant issue of the current refugee waves. Against the background of a brief description of the unique narrative style of the Swiss writer, honored with many literary awards, the article focuses on the dominant themes of escape and anxiety in the analyzed work, interpreting the novel on the one hand as a kind of ‘farewell book’, yet on the other hand also as a ‘welcome book’, which shows how necessary it is to give refugees – paraphrased in the novel’s title as “late guests” – a chance for a new beginning. An important role here is played by the warning from the myth of Orpheus not to look back, which the novel refers to many times. This warning is also in the focus of interpretation pertinent to both the traumatic experiences of the first-person narrator and the shocking ordeals of refugees and emigrants, who often appear in the analyzed work.


Keywords:

Contemporary German-Swiss Prose-writing, the poetics of Gertrud Leutenegger, death, escape, emigration, the myth of Orpheus, anxiety

References

Annen, Daniel. „Der waghalsige Sprung in die Freiheit. Zu Gertrud Leuteneggers neuem Roman Späte Gäste.“ In Grüsse aus der Kantonsschule Kollegium Schwyz 2 (2020): 43–46. Google Scholar

Annen, Daniel. „Liebe als Flucht: Metaphorische und allegorische Sinnschichten in Ger-trud Leuteneggers Roman Späte Gäste (2020).“ Colloquia Germanica Stetinensia 32 (2023): 41–68. https://doi.org/10.18276/cgs.2023.32-03. Google Scholar

Annen, Daniel. „Vom Heiligen Michael zum unflätigen Narrentanz. Meinrad Inglin und Gertrud Leutenegger im Kontext des Schwyzer Brauchtums.“ In Tradition und Moder-ne in der Literatur der Schweiz im 20. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zur Internationalen Kon-ferenz zur deutschsprachigen Literatur der Schweiz. 26. bis 27. September 2007, edited by Eve Pormeister, and Hans Graubner, 227–228. Tartu University Press, 2008 (Reihe: Humaniora: Germanistica 4). Google Scholar

Henke Dean, Silvia. „‚Unruhe des ersehnten Horizontes‘. Narrative des Südens in der Prosa von Gertrud Leutenegger.“ In Blick nach Süden. Literarische Italienbilder aus der deutschsprachigen Schweiz. Schweizer Texte, editet by Corinna Jäger-Trees, and Hu-bert Thüring, 273–286. Zürich: Chronos, 2019. Google Scholar

Kondrič Horvat, Vesna. Der eigenen Utopie nachspüren: zur Prosa der deutschsprachigen Autorinnen in der Schweiz zwischen 1970 und 1990, dargestellt am Werk Gertrud Leu-teneggers und Hanna Johansens. Bern–Berlin–Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2002. Google Scholar

Leutenegger, Gertrud. Pomona. Roman. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004. Google Scholar

Leutenegger, Gertrud. Späte Gäste. Roman. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2020. Google Scholar

Pormeister, Eve. Grenzgängerinnen. Gertrud Leutenegger und die schreibende Nonne Silja Walter aus der Schweiz. Berlin: SAXA-Verlag, 2010. Google Scholar

Schramke, Jürgen. Zur Theorie des modernen Romans. München: C. H. Beck, 1974. Google Scholar

Schweikert, Ruth. „Verlorene Pläne der Weltordnung: Ruth Schweikert über das literari-sche Schaffen von Gertrud Leutenegger.“ In Domino: Ein Schweizer Literatur-Reigen, edited by Simone Meier, 11–15. Salzburg: Otto Müller Verlag, 1998. Google Scholar

Sośnicka, Dorota. Den Rhythmus der Zeit einfangen: Erzählexperimente in der Deutsch-schweizer Gegenwartsliteratur unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Werke von Otto F. Walter, Gerold Späth und Zsuzsanna Gahse. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008. Google Scholar

Sośnicka, Dorota. Wie handgewobene Teppiche: Die Prosawerke Gerhard Meiers. Bern–Berlin–Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 1999. Google Scholar

Winter, Riki. „Gertrud Leutenegger.“ In Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegen-wartsliteratur, edited by Heinz Ludwig Arnold. 31. Nlg. München: edition text + kritik, 1989. Google Scholar

Zwischenzeilen – Schriftstellerinnen der deutschen Schweiz. Reihe Dossier der Schweizer Kulturstiftung Pro Helvetia. Zürich, Bern: Zytglogge, 1989. Google Scholar


Published
2023-12-29

Cited by

Górska, E., & Sośnicka, D. (2023). ‘Refugees’ nightmares’: Motives of escape and anxiety in Gertrud Leutenegger’s novel "Späte Gäste" (2020). Transfer. Reception Studies, 8, 203–226. https://doi.org/10.16926/trs.2023.08.15

Authors

Ewa Górska 

Poland

Authors

Dorota Sośnicka 
dorota.sosnicka@usz.edu.pl
University of Szczecin Poland

Statistics

Abstract views: 0
PDF downloads: 0


License

Copyright (c) 2023 Transfer. Reception Studies

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.


Similar Articles

<< < 1 2 3 4 5 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.