Fly ash (novel)

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Fly ash is a novel by the writer Monika Maron . It is based on Maron's actual experience as a journalist for the Ost-Berliner Wochenpost in the chemical district of the GDR , her examination of censorship , surveillance and environmental pollution . The novel was published in 1981 by S. Fischer Verlag in West Germany .

action

Fly ash tells of the efforts of the East Berlin journalist and single mother Josefa Nadler to write a report about the health-damaging brown coal power plant in the city "B." (meaning Bitterfeld ). The first-person narrator Nadler reports how her report falls victim to censorship: The government wants to build a new and safer power plant, but the old one should also continue to operate. Nadler soon found herself exposed to considerable pressure and reprisals due to her educational efforts. She has to justify herself to the party leadership of the SED as well as to many colleagues and is therefore faced with a moral dilemma that is exacerbated by her family situation. The novel ends with the closure of the brown coal power station. The journalist's professional future remains uncertain.

The novel, critical of the regime, deals with environmental problems and the political and economic conditions in the GDR. Maron attested the GDR citizens cowardice and stupidity: "People have got used to it, and everything does not work at once, historical necessities and so on," a reproach that the author also made in numerous interviews, essays and talk shows. Spying and surveillance by the Ministry of State Security are also discussed in the book.

background

The novel has autobiographical traits : Monika Maron was a reporter for the Wochenpost until 1976 , where she published a report on Bitterfeld on June 21, 1974. Unlike in the book, this was not completely censored, but was only printed with major changes. She processed the experiences that Maron had made at the time by trying to publish her report in her novel. The book also appears as a roman-clef : "The initiate [can] recognize colleagues in many people who are involved if processes seem familiar to him."

Maron often spoke out against the GDR regime in interviews, essays and books. Due to a family relationship, she was protected to a certain extent: Her stepfather was Karl Maron , who died in 1975 and was Minister of the Interior until 1963 and a man who was highly respected in the party leadership. Maron's relationship with the SED was ambivalent. Although the book was regarded in the West as a prime example of critical GDR literature , Maron had it partially checked by a Stasi officer in charge. As it turned out in 1995, she also worked as an unofficial employee for the MfS between October 1976 and May 1978 under the code name "Mitsu" .

The book was not published in the GDR. In the reason given by the deputy minister of culture, it was said that Maron was doing “black painting” in it. In 1988 Maron moved to West Germany because it was no longer published in the GDR. Monika Maron described the exact circumstances of the genesis of her novel Flugasche in 2007 in an article for the anthology Das Erste Buch, edited by Renatus Deckert . Writer on her literary debut .

literature

  • Monika Maron: Fly ash . Novel. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1981, ISBN 3-596-22317-2 .
  • Manuel Cuadra : Bitterfeld. Brown coal fallow . Problems, opportunities, visions. Munich: Prestel Verlag 1998, ISBN 978-3-7913-1267-5 .
  • Josef Hille, Ralf Ruske, Roland W. Scholz, Fred Walkow (eds.): Bitterfeld . Exemplary ecological inventory of a contaminated industrial region. Contributions from the 1st Bitterfeld Environmental Conference. Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 978-3-503-03348-5 .
  • Elke Gilson (Ed.): "But paradise is locked ...". On the work of Monika Maron . Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-596-17199-6 .
  • Monika Maron: Bitterfeld bow . A report. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag 2009. ISBN 978-3-10-048828-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jochen Hieber: Monika Maron "Bitterfeld Bogen" . In: FAZ , June 27, 2009
  2. ↑ "Fly ash", p. 22
  3. ↑ a b c Code name Mitsu . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1995 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Klaus Polkehn: June 21, 1974: Fly ash in Bitterfeld . In: Elke Gilson (Ed.): On the work of Monika Maron. Frankfurt am Main . Fischer publishing house. 2006. pp. 144f.