No Errors Permitted

"In a time when we are continually told that it is no longer possible to tell a good story and that literature itself is redundant, these texts are a real event", writes leading critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki of Kunert's short stories. IRRTUM AUSGESCHLOSSEN presents the whole spectrum: old favourites like DER HAI stand alongside autobiographical texts and new or unpublished stories. AN DER SAALE HELLEM STRAND, for example, deals with a dark chapter of German history, the murder of Walter Rathenau, while WENN DIE NOT AM GRÖSSTEN addresses a very individual problem: What would have happened if I had been somebody else?

Günter Kunert's writing is marked by stringency, precision and ironic disillusionment. Whether he describes the large-scale range of politics or the small weaknesses of its victims: in his razor-sharp sketches, no errors are permitted.

"A merry melancholic." (Beatrix Langer, Neue Zürcher Zeitung)