Gender, Utopia, And Ostalgia: The Pre- and Post-Unification Visions of East German Science Fiction Writer Alexander Kroger‪.‬

Science fiction authors from eastern Germany have begun to publish after a hiatus of more than ten years that followed reunification with the West on October 3, 1990. Almost without exception, these titles come from writers who worked in East Germany. Where many books are slightly revised versions from East German times, a few new novels and anthologies have also appeared. (1) On the whole, former eastern authors, who previously published in a protected market, now have joined science fiction authors all over Germany in their effort to find a national audience amidst heavy competition from Anglo-American translations. There is, however, one major exception to this rule. Alexander Kroger (pseudonym of Helmut Routschek) is an established author from the former East, who has managed to consistently publish a number of novels since his retirement from the natural gas industry in 1994. Like the majority of science fiction authors in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), Kroger wrote in his spare time. Despite this status, he became one of the genre's most prolific writers in East Germany. Since 1969, he has written some nineteen novels and numerous short stories. In the GDR, many of his titles appeared in multiple editions. Like most East German science fiction, his books continuously sold out. His total circulation now reaches upwards of 1.6 million copies. Kroger's novels have been translated into Polish, Hungarian, Russian, Sorbian and, most recently, into Chinese. Since 1995, he has published seven new novels and five new editions. This productive capacity in a time of relative silence merits notice.