Abstract

Author Daniela Dahn is shown during a reading from her polemical pamphlet “In guter Verfassung” [“In Good Constitution”] (1999) on November 1, 2000, in Rostock’s city library. The author, who was born in Berlin in 1949, was already famous for her earlier books Wir bleiben hier oder Wem gehört der Osten [We’re Staying Here or Who Owns the East] (1994), Westwärts und nicht vergessen [Westwards and Don’t Forget] (1996), and Vertreibung ins Paradies [Expulsion into Paradise] (1998). After studying journalism in Leipzig, Dahn initially worked as a television journalist; since 1981, she has worked as an independent author. Since the 1990s, Dahn has engaged critically with the difficult process of reunification and with Federal German constitutional reality from an East German perspective. She was a founding member of "Democratic Awakening” and has been a member of P.E.N. since 1991.