Rulo Melchert is an East German journalist and literary critic who lived in Madagascar for two years at the beginning of the 1980s. He taught German language, literature and civilisation at the University of Antananarivo from 1982 to 1984. On returning to Europe, he published a volume of poems entitled ‹Auf dem stierhörnigen Mondkahn. Gedichte über Madagaskar› with Aufbau-Verlag in 1988. This article purports to examine the notion of decentering linked to Melchert’s Mala-gasy experience, as well as the literary form this takes. Indeed, even though he was commissioned by the German Democratic Republic to go to a country that was witnessing the birth of Socialism, Melchert was far from his centre and discovered a world that was poles apart from the society he is familiar with. The experience of the margins leads this intellectual from East Berlin to search for new ways of identity construction, as well as a language that is able to express otherness. To the contemporary reader, his text written from another world also offers a portrait of the GDR of the 1980s. This piece of research is based on an interview of the author as well as on unpublished material (such as his manuscripts, his travel diary and his correspondence with his editor).
Zitieren Sie diesen Beitrag bitte wie folgt:
Attia, Sandie: DDR – Madagaskar und zurück. Erlebte und erschriebene Dezentrierung in Rulo Melcherts Gedichtband ‹Auf dem stierhörnigen Mondkahn›. <http://www.germanistik.ch/publikation.php? id=Auf_dem_stierhoernigen_Mondkahn> (Publiziert März 2013)
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Attia, Sandie: DDR – Madagaskar und zurück. Erlebte und erschriebene Dezentrierung in Rulo Melcherts Gedichtband ‹Auf dem stierhörnigen Mondkahn›. In: Michael Stolz, Laurent Cassagnau, Daniel Meyer und Nathalie Schnitzer (Hg.): Germanistik in der Schweiz (GiS) Zeitschrift der Schweizerischen Akademischen Gesellschaft für Germanistik. Heft 10/2013. Bern: germanistik.ch 2013, S.355-367