The future of German literature, like the future of united Germany, is a fascinating and vigorously debated question. In this first English-language study on the subject, Keith Bullivant analyses the main aspects of German literature since 1945 from the perspective of the 1990s. He pays particular attention to the periodisation of the literature, the major developments in the 1980s, the social role of writers as intellectuals, and the treatment of the 'German Question'.