Nicolai Riedel
Uwe Johnson-Bibliographie 1959-1998
Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999. Pp. ix+600. DM 258.00
Reviewed by Kurt J. Fickert

Riedel’s bibliography, a crowning achievement of its author and made possible in part by Uwe Johnson’s early death, supercedes a series of preliminary bibliographies (some the author’s own, see p.1-3). Riedel has categorized roughly 4,000 entries under six alphabetical headings. The first four (i.e., A to D) cover the entire range of Johnson’s writings, including the self-appraisals he made in the course of interviews and in the form of autobiographical writings, and of Johnson criticism, including books and critical articles published up to the end of 1998. Section E contains supplementary entries that update Riedel’s text.

Section A surveys the Uwe Johnson’s oeuvre, including his many reviews of GDR television programs and all translations of Johnson’s prose. His correspondence also receives attention in another part of this listing; since a collection of Johnson’s letters has yet to appear, Riedel’s indications of where they can be found is most helpful. Of even greater significance is the fact that Riedel’s bibliography also lists Johnson’s remarks about his own life (there are only a few, if one does not count Johnson’s political statements here) and the commentary on his works (which is all the more abundant and pertinent).

By far the most extensive list of bibliographical entries is to be found in section B. This section of over 400 pages is most valuable to critics and scholars, for it is here that Riedel, a scholar and Johnson enthusiast, a Research Fellow at the German Literature Archives in Marbach, and a founding member and co-editor of the annual publication Internationales Uwe-Johnson Forum (131-32), exhibits his cognizance and finesse. Riedel starts by listing books of literary criticism dealing with Johnson’s fiction and continues with scholarly articles and the collections of these, all of which provide Johnson’s ever-growing readership and scholars of his work with new insights. Riedel has duly cross-referenced this mass of information so that the studies produced by a particular literary critic or those written in reference to a particular novel or story can be readily traced. In addition, notations of the reviews of books critiquing Johnson’s fiction are included among the entries. Noteworthy in this regard are the reviews listed of Bernd Neumann’s lengthy biography Uwe Johnson (1994); over two pages of entries in fine print indicate the interest of the reading public in Johnson’s life and novels. This, of course, is not surprising as Johnson is a preeminent German author, one who helped resuscitate German literature in the post World-War II era. Unfortunately, only two of the reviews of Neumann’s study are in English.

The final pages of Riedel’s user-friendly and, at the same time, scholarly bibliography feature four indexes, listing titles, names of themes and places, names of authors, and periodicals. For the years of diligent labor and persistence that went into this bibliography, Riedel deserves the gratitude and respect of all those interested in the life and works of Uwe Johnson.