Contenu du sommaire : Fictions biographiques dans la littérature, les romans graphiques et le cinéma des années 1990 à aujourd'hui

German-language biographical fictions about Johann Wolfgang Goethe are numerous in literature and film. Their thematic focus is often on Goethe in interpersonal constellations; the love theme in particular is taken up repeatedly, often in connection with his artistry and autobiographical interpretations of his work. Such a view of the private Goethe and his love relationships is chosen by Martin Walser in his 2008 novel Ein liebender Mann, which deals with the old Goethe's love for Ulrike von Levetzow, and by Philipp Stölzl in his 2010 feature film Goethe!, which takes up young Goethe's love for Charlotte Buff. Particularly prominent here is the confluence of person and work in biographical fiction, which will be elaborated in this article on the basis of the intertextual and intermedial references. The focus here is on the treatment of the historical in fiction, the use of quotations, the function of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers as a pre-text, and the representation of authorship by means of letters and metafictional elements.

Biographical Fiction, which has progressively made a place for itself in contemporary literary studies, is defined by the complex relation that it has with both the fields of history and fiction.The texts chosen to study the treatment of this genre in an intercultural context are Province (published in 1997) and La Maîtresse de Brecht (Prix Goncourt 2003) written by the late 20th century French writer and critic Jacques-Pierre Amette. These two narratives dedicated to Bertolt Brecht illustrate the complex displacements of referential material (the heart of the analyses of Yves Baudelle, Frances Fortier and Robert Dion), as well as the transformation of biographical information.How can we define what we may call the “fictional-biographical agreement” within this theoretical framework? In this complex process of transposition, what meaning should be given to the choice of the great German playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht? So, while several statements by Amette underscore his fascination with the figure of the “committed writer”, the section that serves as the setting for La Maîtresse de Brecht does not celebrate the genre of biography, which found itself in an ambiguous political and ideological predicament in the face of the East German regime. We therefor propose a formulation of interpretative hypotheses on both the choices made in the process of fictionalization, and those made in the reserved treatment of the great figure of Brecht by a contemporary French writer.

The graphic novel Der Boxer (2012) by Reinhard Kleist tells the story of Hertzko Haft's life. The Polish Jew literally fought for his life by fighting against other prisoners in concentration camps. Experiences of the Shoah are classified as ‘unsagbar' (unspeakable) and challenge those who want to bear witness to them. The creation of realistic depictions out of respect for the victims clashes with the impossibility of conveying the experience of these horrors precisely and tangibly. In his graphic novel Kleist illustrates unrepresentable moments of Haft's biography. This article investigates the relationship between reality and fiction in Der Boxer and demonstrates that it oscillates between both: Kleist's illustrations of Haft's experiences with the Shoah accomplish his claim of authenticity by staying close to his biography. When he depicts unrepresentable experiences he focusses on the emotions of the protagonist and expresses the horror of the Shoah with black areas and expressive drawings which differ from the otherwise prevalent style. With imaginations of Haft's inner space Kleist suggests correlations between different moments in Haft's life. The style of those dream sequences develops throughout the novel and represents the increase of clarity in Haft's process of memories.

The article first examines the public discourse on memory of the sintoboxer Johann Trollmann since 1945. The interest in Trollmann is to be situated both against the background of the remembrance of the genocide of the Sinti and Roma that began in the 1980s and in the context of a boom in the biographical genre that began in the 1990s, as well as a renewed literary and cultural interest in boxing since the 1990s. Subsequently, it will be shown that and how the narrating of his life story is subject to a process of successive fictionalization. While the functions and forms of the various biographical and biofictional narrations of the boxer's life differ significantly in detail, they nevertheless meet in the central aspect of memory. Remembering is thus both a prerequisite for and a function of the narration of Trollmann's life story.

Margarethe von Trotta's biographical fiction Hannah Arendt (2012) is dedicated to one of the most influential and at the same time most controversial thinkers of the post-war period and her theory of the ‘banality of evil' developed in reports about the trial against the Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann. My approach to von Trotta's movie, which is primarily based on a close viewing, is guided by my interest in its specific staging of (anti-)conformist behavior. In this regard, I postulate that the filmic juxtaposition of thoughtless conformism and critical thinking becomes, above others, manifest – in metaphorical correspondence to the film's leitmotif of the trial – in the character drawing of Arendt as an observing judge. As I would argue, this notion is reinforced by a mise en abyme at the level of reception, in the sense that the generic blending of historical footage and fictionalized events forces the audience into the role of an observer, asked to decide a verdict on both Eichmann's trial and Arendt's thoughts.

The article is dedicated to Ursula Krechel's novel Landgericht (2012), which is presented as a rigorously documented biography of a Jewish judge forced into exile during the Third Reich and separated from his family, who is one of the few emigrants who return to Germany after the war and try to find a place there. It shows how Ursula Krechel uses elements from the history of a real person, using archival documents and testimonies of relatives, which she integrates into the text. However, it also analyses the extent to which the book, while drawing very closely on its documentation, nevertheless takes liberties with it in order to set accents and paint a critical picture of post-war Germany

Nowadays the literary market is almost flooded by texts by and about well-known people for children and/or adolescents. On the one hand, some of these people are celebrities from various professional backgrounds, who are now writing for young people. In the German speaking countries very different people like the politician Norbert Blüm, actor Max von Thun, singer Maite Kelly, director Doris Dörrie and footballer Thomas Müller are among these celebrities publishing literary texts for children. On the other hand, there are a lot of historical figures who are being staged in children's media. Dealing with biographic fiction, these texts are interesting regarding various aspects: they tell about the celebrities' lives in a combination of texts and images and because these texts derive from a cooperation of author and illustrator, one could understand picture books as combinations of biographic and autobiographic literary strategies.

In the last few decades there has been an increase in books for children and young people that deal with the biographies of prominent women. This arises from a social consciousness that is concerned with highlighting the role of women in History. What concerns literature for children and young people, biographical works aim to present the life stories of important women as role models and at the same time to familiarize children and young people with History.I would like to analyze some books about the biographies of female German writers dealing with the lives of authors like Christa Wolf, Hildegard von Bingen, Bettina von Arnim, Karoline von Günderrode, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Nelly Sachs, etc. The aim of the analysis is to examine the use of life stories for children and young adults and, in this context, the relationship between fiction and reality when the authors adapt historical contexts and events for children and adolescents.

Born in 1964 in Recklinghausen, the comedian Hape Kerkeling is a star of West German television. He describes his childhood in the Ruhr in the 1960s-1970s, his mother's suicide and family bonds in Der Junge muss an die frische Luft, a book published in 2014 that became a bestseller. Imagined by the producers as a Christmas blockbuster showing the birth of a star, the autobiographical text was adapted by screenwriter Ruth Toma and director Caroline Link who succeed in exploring the family novel with finesse and in drawing the portrait of an epoch by adapting to the constraints of the film economy through significant intermedial strategies. This article proposes to study the stakes of cathartic writing and the obsessive theme of abandon. It analyzes in particular the importance of casting, directing of the actor and the use of props and sentimental pop-music songs, subtle vectors of intermediality. They allow untying the complexity of the biographical but also historical memory that reemerges in the childhood of an artist who grew up in post-fascist Germany.