Uwe Timm and the Ghosts of the Past—A Writer’s Ethical Impact on the Agenda of Collective Memory

This essay explores the combined issues of revision and collective memory with reference to the works of German writer Uwe Timm (b. 1940). Timm, a successful writer in Germany, who is now in his eighties, reveals in his work a distinct trend toward retrospection and revision. He is particularly well-known for his novel Morenga (1978, AmE 2003), first published at a time when the German colonial record in Africa was of no public interest. His novel In My Brother's Shadow (2003, AmE 2005) deals Nazism and the Second World War in a very personal way with. Timm’s work concentrates on twentieth-century German history. His latest novel Ikarien (2017) explores the beginnings of scientific racism in Europe in relation to the race politics of the Third Reich, also known as eugenics. The essay explores if, and how, an author can potentially influence collective historical remembrance and what can be learnt from Timm’s literary engagement with the past for our own social and political responsibility.