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Bitterfelder Bogen: Ein Bericht
»Vielleicht kennen ja sogar die Ostdeutschen ihre eigenen Erfolgsgeschichten zu wenig, um stolz auf sie und sich selbst zu sein.«
»B. ist die schmutzigste Stadt Europas«, schrieb Monika Maron in ihrem Debütroman ›Flugasche‹ (1981). B. steht für Bitterfeld, bis heute ein Synonym für marode Wirtschaft und verkommene Umwelt. Dreißig Jahre später hat sie die Stadt wieder besucht und die Spur der Veränderungen nachgezeichnet. Sie erzählt von der Wiederauferstehung einer Region, vor allem aber vom Aufbruch einiger Kreuzberger Solarenthusiasten in die Provinz Sachsen-Anhalts, wo sie eine Solarzellenfabrik mit 40 Arbeitsplätzen bauen wollten. Nur acht Jahre später ist Q-Cells der größte Solarzellenhersteller der Welt. Aus der kleinen Solarzellenfabrik ist ›Solar Valley‹ geworden. (S. Fischer Verlag)
»B. ist die schmutzigste Stadt Europas«, schrieb Monika Maron in ihrem Debütroman ›Flugasche‹ (1981). B. steht für Bitterfeld, bis heute ein Synonym für marode Wirtschaft und verkommene Umwelt. Dreißig Jahre später hat sie die Stadt wieder besucht und die Spur der Veränderungen nachgezeichnet. Sie erzählt von der Wiederauferstehung einer Region, vor allem aber vom Aufbruch einiger Kreuzberger Solarenthusiasten in die Provinz Sachsen-Anhalts, wo sie eine Solarzellenfabrik mit 40 Arbeitsplätzen bauen wollten. Nur acht Jahre später ist Q-Cells der größte Solarzellenhersteller der Welt. Aus der kleinen Solarzellenfabrik ist ›Solar Valley‹ geworden. (S. Fischer Verlag)
176 pages, Gebunden
First published June 22, 2009
About the author
Monika Maron
45 books64 followersMonika Maron is a German author, formerly of the German Democratic Republic. She moved in 1951 from West to East Berlin with her stepfather, Karl Maron, the GDR Minister of the Interior.
She studied theatre and spent time as a directing assistant and as a journalist. In the late 1970s, she began writing full-time in East Berlin. In her early novels written in East Berlin, her primary theme was life and loathing inside a totalitarian surveillance state. But despite Maron's criticism of the GDR regime, it turned out that she had worked as an informer for the Ministry of State Security, or Stasi — a fact that she addressed in her 1999 novel, Pawels Briefe (Pawel's Letters).
She left the GDR in 1988 with a three-year visa. After living in Hamburg, Germany, until 1992, she returned to a reunited Berlin, where she currently lives and writes.
Her works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the threats posed both by memory and isolation. Her prose is sparse, bleak, and lonely, conveying the sensitivity and desperation of her narrators.
In 1992, she was distinguished with the renowned Kleist Prize, awarded annually to prominent German authors, and, in 2003, with the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize.
Her latest novel, Artur Lanz (2020), delves into the emasculation of men as "heroes," and the evolution of "cancel culture" in a liberal mainstream that polices speech and opinions. Maron's characters' views on gender, immigration and Islam made some wonder if the once leftist writer had become Islamophobic or anti-feminist. Maron has also railed against the "gender gibberish" of woke liberals in political essays. She has criticized an "unenlightened Islam" and warned against "tolerance in the face of intolerance." Her political rhetoric echoes the far-right AFD party. Is the opinionated author turning herself into a mouthpiece for the alt right?
"I say what I think," she explained in an interview with public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. "I arrive at my convictions or opinions by looking at the world or reading about it, or by weighing one opinion against another and somehow orienting myself. Whether that's right-wing or not doesn't matter to me in the end."
She studied theatre and spent time as a directing assistant and as a journalist. In the late 1970s, she began writing full-time in East Berlin. In her early novels written in East Berlin, her primary theme was life and loathing inside a totalitarian surveillance state. But despite Maron's criticism of the GDR regime, it turned out that she had worked as an informer for the Ministry of State Security, or Stasi — a fact that she addressed in her 1999 novel, Pawels Briefe (Pawel's Letters).
She left the GDR in 1988 with a three-year visa. After living in Hamburg, Germany, until 1992, she returned to a reunited Berlin, where she currently lives and writes.
Her works deal to a large degree with confrontation with the past and explore the threats posed both by memory and isolation. Her prose is sparse, bleak, and lonely, conveying the sensitivity and desperation of her narrators.
In 1992, she was distinguished with the renowned Kleist Prize, awarded annually to prominent German authors, and, in 2003, with the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize.
Her latest novel, Artur Lanz (2020), delves into the emasculation of men as "heroes," and the evolution of "cancel culture" in a liberal mainstream that polices speech and opinions. Maron's characters' views on gender, immigration and Islam made some wonder if the once leftist writer had become Islamophobic or anti-feminist. Maron has also railed against the "gender gibberish" of woke liberals in political essays. She has criticized an "unenlightened Islam" and warned against "tolerance in the face of intolerance." Her political rhetoric echoes the far-right AFD party. Is the opinionated author turning herself into a mouthpiece for the alt right?
"I say what I think," she explained in an interview with public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk. "I arrive at my convictions or opinions by looking at the world or reading about it, or by weighing one opinion against another and somehow orienting myself. Whether that's right-wing or not doesn't matter to me in the end."
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 5, 2009
30 Jahre, nachdem Monika Maron mit "Flugasche" einen Roman über eine DDR-Journalistin, die versucht, die Wahrheit über B.(itterfeld) zu schreiben, vorgelegt hat, kehrt sie an den Ort zurück. Bitterfeld ist inzwischen von der wahrscheinlich dreckigsten Stadt Europas zu einem Naherholungsgebiet geworden und vor allem das - saubere - "Solar Valley", das sich dort angesiedelt hat, hat es ihr angetan. In Romanform, aber ausschliesslich Fakten und Gespräche widergebend, berichtet Monika Maron über die Entstehung des Solar Valley, die Gründer von Q-Cells und der Entwicklung von Bitterfeld nach dem Mauerfall. Vor allem die Tatsache, dass Q-Cells irgendwann in den Weltmarkt eingebunden und von den internationalen Kapitalmärkten abhängig ist, bleibt ihr - im Sinne des Gründers Reiner Lemoine - suspekt und zum Ende des Buches gibt ihr die Finanzkrise von 2008/09 Recht.
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