Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays

In this volume, the distinguished East German writer Christa Wolf retells the story of the fall of Troy, but from the point of view of the woman whose visionary powers earned her contempt and scorn. Written as a result of the author's Greek travels and studies, Cassandra speaks to us in a pressing monologue whose inner focal points are patriarchy and war. In the four accompanying pieces, which take the form of travel reports, journal entries, and a letter, Wolf describes the novel's genesis. Incisive and intelligent, the entire volume represents an urgent call to examine the past in order to insure a future.

Ernest Powell

"With knowledge, insight, and foreboding, Christa Wolf has brilliantly rewritten history, and in viewing the past to the eyes of the doomed seer, she traces its own imminent future." -- The New York Times

In 1980 East German author Christa Wolf took a trip to Greece accompanied by her husband, Gerhard. In 1982 she was awarded a guest lectureship at the University of Frankfurt, where in May she delivered a series of five "Lectures on Poetics" relating to her Greek travels and studies. The fifth "lecture" was ad raft of the novel Cassandra, which she then revised and expanded for publication. The four introductory lectures were published separately in Germany under the title Conditions of a Narrative: Cassandra; The Frankfurt Lectures on Poetics (Voraussetzungen einer Erzählung: Kassandra). This volume presents the novel first, followed by its companion lectures, which illuminate its background and implications.