Susan Taubes
Prosaschriften
[Susan Taubes. Prose Writings]

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Translated from American English by Werner Richter

In Germany, philosopher and writer Susan Taubes (born Feldmann, 1928–1969) only found fame in the mid-1990s, following the translation of her 1969 novel Divorcing, and as the first wife of philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes. The edition of her estate reveals her to be an independent thinker, whose fascinating body of work comprises writings on literature and theater, the philosophy of religion, and cultural studies.

This third volume of the edition collects eleven prose writings from Taubes’ estate. Except for two stories that were published during her lifetime, these texts are published and translated into German for the first time. The ten stories collected in this volume as well as a novel-like prose piece, all written between 1957 and 1969, formed Susan Taubes’ image as a writer. They feature masterful plays with perspective and narrative styles in many different settings and on a variety of subjects. Through her literature, Taubes continued her philosophical thoughts and reflections. Whether in the tone of the grotesque, the absurd, the dream, or waking life, of dark humor or the gruesome fairy tale: The reader encounters depictions of strangeness and placelessness, the merging of life and death, the dialectic of reason and passion—and the impossibility of recounting a life’s story as a certain and straightforward development.