Neither Left Nor Right: The Politics of Individualism in Uwe Johnson’s Work

Uwe Johnson (1934-1984) is the author of Jahrestage, a four-volume novel, which Die Zeit has placed on its list of the one hundred great books in world literature. He has been called the author of the two Germanies because in his books Mutmassungen ueber Jakob, Das dritte Buch ueber Achim, and Zwei Ansichten he gives an unprejudiced view of life on both sides of the border. This study explores the basic theme in Johnson’s work, the confrontation between the individual who needs to maintain the integrity of his selfhood and the sociopolitical circumstances surrounding the individual which demand conformity to their particular standards, a theme of significance not only for Germany but for all countries in this century and, without doubt, the next.