Other literary forms
Although Anna Seghers (SAY-gehrs) was primarily a writer of fiction, known for her tightly structured novellas and novels that express the theme of revolutionary solidarity, there is extant a considerable body of her essays, speeches, and letters, notably the three-volume collection Über Kunstwerk und Wirklichkeit (1970-1971; on the work of art and reality). As a writer committed to communism, Seghers endeavored to define the concept of realism in the so-called debate on expressionism that took place among leftist exiled writers in the late 1930’s. After her return from exile, Seghers participated in the various discussions concerning the function of literature in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Her short stories “Die Hochzeit auf Haiti” (the wedding on Haiti) and “Die Wiedereinführung der Sklaverei auf Guadeloupe” (the reestablishment of slavery on Guadeloupe) depict liberation movements—albeit unsuccessful ones—in the Caribbean during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period. Although these stories are not completely devoid of relevance to their time of publication, they do not deal directly with their author’s contemporary reality.
Also noteworthy is Seghers’s radio play Der Prozess der Jeanne d’Arc zu Rouen 1431 (pr. 1937; the trial of Joan of Arc at Rouen in 1431), which was adapted and staged by Bertolt Brecht. A collection of Seghers’s essays, Glauben an Irdisches: Essays aus vier Jahrzehnten, edited by novelist Christa Wolf, was published in 1974.