This volume presents the currents and trends that have shaped the image of German literature over the past 20 years. The authors of the texts seek to answer the question: Have the euphoria of reunification, the disillusionment with reunification, the East German "Ostalgie," the Western apolitical and sometimes defeatist attitude, and the retreat into personal matters of the 1990s given way to newer perspectives?

Has the utopia of a cultural nation been realized, or has the reality of a coordinated economic location of a unified Germany prevailed?

The public is presented with literature that has freed itself from any moral baggage of taboo topics. The authors address their subjects directly, openly discussing the traumas of the past, the changed and vulnerable position of the individual and society, as well as the frightened human condition after September 11, 2001.