Rubble Flora
Living in the former communist East Germany, Volker Braun upheld the voice of the individual imagination and identified with a utopian possibility that never became reality. He found a singular voice amid the upheavals of 1989 — exploring the triumph of capitalism and the languages of advertising, terror, politics and war. At the same time, Braun is a sensual poet in tune with the natural landscape. Many of his poems set quotations from Rimbaud, Shakespeare and Brecht into his own context, where they work as ironic illuminations of a present plight. Cumulatively, Rubble Flora, which collects half a century of Braun’s poetry, offers a searing vision of the last few transformative decades.
Volker Braun is the author of numerous plays, works of fiction, volumes of poetry and essays, and the winner of the prestigious Georg Büchner Prize in 2000.
