Il mito di Berlino nella scrittura di Judith Hermann, Norman Ohler e Inka Parei

The purpose of this study was to investigate contemporary German literature, represented by the young generation of authors who, after the fall of the Wall and German reunification, chose the capital Berlin as main Leitmotiv of their works as well as their new cultural homeland, so much so that critics haven’t hesitated to define them Generation Berlin. The study focuses on the literary representation of the Berlin myth that today expresses the political, economical and social contradictions of globalization that invested Germany after 1989 and contributed to changing the image of Berlin radically modifying its urban palimpsest. The thesis examines the novels Mitte and Die Schattenboxerin respectively written by Norman Ohler and Inka Parei as well as the tale Sommerhaus, später by Judith Hermann, where Berlin becomes the symbol of the problematic relationship with the past and of the existential conditions experienced by young generations nowadays, steadily looking for a new identity that could make them feel secure in the present precarious world. The analysis of the above mentioned texts reveals that the literature of the Generation Berlin is an important way of understanding contemporary Germany and the literary trends of our time, thanks to its ability to describe daily reality in detail and at the same time to conceive an alternative one. To this end, the narrations offer themselves as experimental field to criticize globalised Germany and to envision a different future, where history, finally released from its unsolved conflicts, could effectively take part in the planning of a new German Heimat.