Christoph Hein

Christoph Hein is aware of the problem from his circle of acquaintances: "I have friends with part–time jobs at universities. They keep applying for jobs, but are rejected." This plight prompted him to write his latest novel Weiskerns Nachlass. (…) The book makes its readers deeply uneasy about the situation at German universities. We are introduced to Rüdiger Stolzenburg, a German literature and theatre scholar, and one of those part–time employees. He has been in the job for 15 years now. Financially, he can just make ends meet by holding lectures and writing essays and book reviews. His problem is that he is already 59 and has no prospect of obtaining a full–time job or civil–service status. This has changed him. He has shed his former illusions and ambitions. (…) Hein shows us the business of scholarship in an age of spending cuts. He contrasts two worlds within German society. On the one hand there are scholars like Stolzenburg who do their work although it is badly paid because it gives meaning to their lives. On the other hand, there are those for whom money has become a be–all and end–all and who are more successful at earning it. These successful money–minded people, we realise with dismay, are pushing to the wall those intellectually–minded people for whom money is a means to pursue a meaningful activity.

Tomas Gärtner: „Die destruktive Wirkung des Geldes“
© Leipziger Volkszeitung, 23 September 2011