Seit die Götter ratlos sind
Ever Since the Gods Don’t Know What To Do
Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1994, 415 pages
Kerstin Jentzsch, born 1964, has a varied life in the GDR behind her, which she has imputed to the heroine of her novel. Lisa Meerbusch is ‘a typical Eastern wimp’, ‘who is slow at learning, slow at understanding’. Had a West German author written that, there would justifiably be insulted protests and the rift between the Western and the Eastern mentality would again yawn wide. But here a young woman is, so to say, simply giving away secrets. [...] In the first part of the novel, we accompany the young and pretty Lisa Meerbusch on her way through the difficult everyday life of the GRD, into the notorious state combines, to harvest service or her grandfather’s dacha. Along with the devoutly socialist and only timidly doubting heroine, the reader then experiences the Wende after the fall of the Berlin Wall, her first experience of the West, the many hopes and disappointments of politically active utopians and smart, hard-bitten capitalists.
Kerstin Jentzsch – Biography
Stefan Eggert: „Aus der DDR-Tristesse in die griechische Sonne. Die junge Berlinerin Kerstin Jentzsch legt ihren autobiographischen Erstlingsroman vor.“
© Der Tagesspiegel, 15.05.1994
