Im Greifblick, im Gleitbild. Aspekte literarischer Reiseprosa bei Joachim Wittstock
Aspects of literary travel writing by Joachim Wittstock
Born in Hermannstadt / Sibiu in 1939, the Romanian-German writer, who continues to live in his birthplace, wrote poems, prose sketches, narratives, novels, essays and literary treatises. In 2016, he published in the Sibiu publishing company hora verlag the volume “The White Lagoon and other travel stations”, with the explanatory subtitle “Travel prose”. At first glance, this sounds rather sober, but in Wittstock’s narratives the real travel stations turn into scenes of fictional events and the author offers a documentary-artistic travel literature, whose starting point lies mostly in his real experiences, but the literary means of representation that Wittstock uses in his narratives are of literary-aesthetic nature. Thus, Wittstock’s travel prose fundamentally differs from the travel writings for tourist purposes, which are to be considered as functional literature. In what form and with what intentions the RomanianGerman author deals with the subject of travel, will be explained in the present work.
Keywords: Joachim Wittstock, tourist travel literature, functional literature, documentary-artistic travel literature
