A Conversation with Angela Krauss
Rebekah Shultz Colby

As a prose author, Angela Krauss topics range from life in the GDR and post-Wall identity to explorations of the USA, Russia, and Trieste. In 1988, she received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. The published version of poetic lectures she gave at the University of Frankfurt (Die Gesamtliebe und die Einzelliebe) was honored with the Kammweg Literary Prize in 2006. She was also awarded the 2007 Hermann Lenz prize for her novella, Wie Weiter?

On the afternoon of Tuesday, October 28, a group of Writing Program faculty members, English graduate students, and faculty from creative writing and German gathered in Penroses Chan Family Room to hear Angela Krauss talk about her writing. Largely facilitated by Doug Hesse, this is the conversation that followed.

Doug Hesse: Do you enjoy writing?

Angela Krauss: Yes.

Hesse: Do you talk differently about writing to non-creative writers?

Krauss: Its very boring to talk to authors about writing. They already know about the difficulties of writing so everyone agrees. Writing is not easy, but we do it.

Hesse: What are you writing now?

Krauss: Thats the only question I do not like. I dont know what I do when I write.

Hesse: Tell us about your book.

Krauss: True literature begins when you can no longer summarize it. The book centers on a question about life. I was very aware of this question when I wrote. How do we go on? The book is unified around this question, not a plot. The question unifies the book.

The book also centers around change and transformation. Change is a way to repeat. Without this repetition, we couldnt recognize a text as a text. This repetition is in all kinds of art. Repetition and variation is a rhythm within a text.

I feel the whole book when I start to write. Sometimes, though, the book is a mystery to me at first. Sometimes I dream the book before I start to write. Once I dreamed about a pleated shoe. This pleated shoe became the whole structure for one of my books. Starting the book is the most horrible time. I know what I want to write but not how.

Hesse: How does living in Germany compare to living in the US for a writer?

Krauss: Germans are living in paradise still, but we still need to decide if we want money or we want to write a book. However, there are many romantic Germans who live lives based on their ideals. It is possible to live as a writer on grants, fellowships, and stipends without taking a teaching position or finding another type of separate job.

Herman Hesse is still a hugely popular author in Germany, selling 3000 to 5000 books a year, probably because he asks about a sense of life. He asks the question, Who am I? Each generation asks that question.

Hesse: In German, writers can create compound words to more accurately represent what they are trying to say. In English, writers have to select just the right word to use, which can be exhausting because there are so many. In German, though, it is not selection but creation. How do feel about using compound words in your writing?

Krauss: I prefer to find the right, exact word. I see myself as a poet. What matters is the aura around a word. The aura only exists with words that already exist and that others have already used. I strive for clear, exact expression in my writing.

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