Wende und Körperdarstellung in Hensels Lärchenau

[EN] Kerstin Hensel’s literary universe is haunted by fallen heroes, outsiders and gregarious figures with no success. They experience the German Wende in a very peculiar constellation, they perceive Post-Unification Germany at times from a fantastic perspective, always from a painful experience. In this context the analysis of the representations of the body in Hensel’s narrative before and after 1989 offers a rich insight on Hensel’s critical view of Post-Unification Germany. By analysing her texts such as Hallimasch and Lärchenau this article shows that the suffering grotesque bodies in both works stand for a political metaphor of a social body with hardly a cure.