The Cultural Politics of Heiner Müller

Heiner MÃ1/4ller was perhaps the most politically and artistically sophisticated and provocative of Europeâ (TM)s post-World War II playwrights. He was a communist whose work was banned for years by the Communist government of the German Democratic Republic where he lived and worked. MÃ1/4ller offended the bureaucrats and political thugs who ran East Germany with his brutal, beautiful and honest dissection of the culture and politics in Eastern Europe. At the same time, MÃ1/4ller infuriated (or at least annoyed) the anti-communists and liberals of the West because he refused to leave the GDR or become a â oedissident.â Starting as a protÃ(c)gÃ(c) of Bertolt Brecht, MÃ1/4ller evolved into one of the great innovative poets of the 20th century, writing texts for the stage that seem to defy the limitations of the theater. Not only do his later texts have no plot, they are often devoid of specific characters and even dialogue. His work is a bridge between modernism and postmodernism in the theatre as well as between the East-West conflicts that defined the Cold War and the North-South conflicts are emerging in the post-communist world.In this unique collection, the first to focus on his cultural politics, some of the worldâ (TM)s leading MÃ1/4ller scholars and directors grapple with the political, artistic and ethical implications of MÃ1/4llerâ (TM)s life and work at the start of the 21st Century.