What remains and other stories

What Remains collects Christa Wolf's short fiction, from her early work in the sixties to the recently published title story, which was widely debated when it appeared in Germany in 1990. These powerful and often very personal stories examine a wide range of topics, from sexual politics to the nature of memory. In "What Remains", an East German writer who is under observation by the secret police traces the way in which this almost constant surveillance gradually destroys every shred of normalcy in her life. In "Exchanging Glances", a woman remembers, from a far distance in time, place, and politics, the flight of her family from the advancing Russian Army during World War II. And in the biting and very funny satire "The New Life and Opinions of a Tomcat", we meet Max the cat, the devoted pet of a professor of applied psychology who is working on the realization of TOHUHA (Total Human Happiness), or the abolition of tragedy. What Remains offers a fascinating introduction to Wolf's work.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.