Includes bibliographical references and index

Self-indictment -- The language of the turning point -- Momentary interruption -- A German you can contradict : Hans Mayer -- Whatever happened to your smile? Wasteland Berlin 1990 -- Rummelplatz, the eleventh plenum of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party, 1965 : a report from memory -- Two letters : I. To an Academy ; II. To Wolfgang Thierse -- "The truth of our tongues" : the stories of Grace Paley -- Woserin, Friday, September 27, 1991 -- Cancer and society -- The leftover baggage of German history : correspondence with Jurgen Habermas -- Trial by nail.

(Cont'd) On the road to Tabou : Paul Parin -- Clinical findings -- The multiple being inside us : correspondence with Efim Etkind -- Mood fit -- Caught talking : Otl Aicher -- The faces of Anna Seghers : a picture book -- Santa Monica, Sunday, September 27, 1992 -- "Free, ordered, inconsolable" : to Heinrich Boll on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday -- Hours of weakness, hours of strength : correspondence with Gunter Grass -- One's own contradictory life : Volker and Anne Braun to Christa Wolf -- Reply to a letter from Volker Braun -- Berlin, Monday, September 17, 1993 -- Insisting on myself : Christa Wolf in conversation with Gunter Gaus -- The symbols of Nuria Quevedo -- Parting from phantoms : on Germany.