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I can't find a specific community for German literature so I will try my luck here. My guess is this community is populated by lovers of German language and German books :)

So, I came across a list of German authors and mentioned it on Twitter. A good friend caught the tweet and corrected me saying that Kafka wasn't German. My perception however, is that because Kafka wrote in German in my non-European eyes his works are German literature. I understand because I am not European the sociopolitical distinction between German - Czech - Austrian - Hungarian together with changing national boundaries during Kafka's entire lifetime are pretty lost on me.

My question is: how is German literature defined? What qualifies as German literature? Does the writer have to be a German citizen for their work to qualify as German literature, or merely sharing some cultural similarities across borders and writing in German enough?

I am asking as someone who has never been learning German in a formal setting.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: changed the phrasing to please some contributors. I do try…

braaains
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    Some relevant comments (in German): https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/26484/was-ist-eine-waldung#comment63624_26484 – chirlu Mar 08 '16 at 12:24
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    I’m voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about history of literature, cultural and educational policy etc., but not about the German language. – chirlu Mar 08 '16 at 12:26
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    Oh. Tough crowd. I will try my luck outside of stackexchange then. – braaains Mar 08 '16 at 12:30
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    @chirlu I don't think this is off-topic. It's surely not as on-topic as most other questions, but it's still closely related to the German language and where else would you ask the question? – Janek Bevendorff Mar 08 '16 at 12:30
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    @Janek Bevendorff: Well, I don’t agree; as I said, it’s mostly politics etc. BTW, the question is also opinion-based (“How do you define German literature?”); there is no “correct” definition for what German literature is. – There probably is no place on SE where this question could be asked (even on Literature 1, 2, it would be too opinion-based); but that’s not necessary, either – it‘s completely fine for some questions not to be on-topic anywhere on SE. – chirlu Mar 08 '16 at 12:50
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    Es mutet recht kafkaesk an, Franz Kafka nicht der deutschen Literatur zuordnen zu wollen. – Alexander Mar 08 '16 at 15:41
  • @chirlu should I edit & rephrase the question to be "How is German literature defined?" I hope this community will tolerate an awkward phrasing or two, because English is not my native language. – braaains Mar 09 '16 at 05:14
  • @braaains: You should really ask that those people who believe the question is on-topic and answerable in an objective way. – chirlu Mar 09 '16 at 08:59
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    Consider an analogy: Is "The Old Man and the Sea" considered English literature, or American literature? – Benubird Mar 09 '16 at 09:19
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    @Benubird Actually, it depends. In the terms of Wikpedia: both, since there they talk about English-language literature under the lemma of English literature. The Encyclopedia Britannica, on the other hand, uses another definition. --- Beside: I wish the stability of "American" and "English" as a regional or national identifiers would have been a real analogy to "German". – Matthias Mar 10 '16 at 00:01
  • @chirlu You’re right, in its current form this question is off-topic, because it’s asking whether Kafka or his works are considered German when it should have asked whether they’re considered deutsch (they’re certainly deutschsprachig). – Crissov Mar 12 '16 at 16:44

3 Answers3

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In German there is a distinction between deutsche Literatur (German literature) and deutschsprachige Literatur (literature written in German). The former would only include authors from Germany, while the latter expands to Austrians and Swiss as well. Thus, Kafka is part of the deutschsprachige Literatur (see German Wikipedia, for example).

Tsundoku
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Jan Stephan
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  • Thank you! This is the kind of information I was looking for, as I am not heavily immersed in German culture. – braaains Mar 08 '16 at 12:31
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    By the way, there is also German language literature in other parts of the world beyond the three main countries. Examples are Kazakhstan, Belgium and Brazil. – Martin Peters Mar 08 '16 at 12:51
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    what exactly in the german wikipedia? – BЈовић Mar 08 '16 at 14:28
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    People in Liechtenstein also speak German! – RoflcoptrException Mar 08 '16 at 14:33
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    The reference to German Wikipedia contradicts your answer: Deutsche Literatur redirects to "Deutschsprachige Literatur", which in turn uses both terms as synonyms in its introductory sentence. – Matthias Mar 08 '16 at 15:10
  • Martin Peters, RoflcoptrException: True, and much more examples (Romania...) can be found as well. My apologies if someone felt left out. – Jan Stephan Mar 09 '16 at 17:34
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    BЈовић: The article about Kafka himself.

    Matthias: I think I'll disagree with the German wikipedia about that topic then. "Österreichische Literatur" (Austrian literature) and "Schweizer Literatur" (Swiss literature) are clearly a thing and describe literature from Austria or Switzerland. How exactly should we name literature from Germany if not with "Deutsche Literatur"? (There is a complaint on wiki's discussion page as well.)

     – Jan Stephan Mar 09 '16 at 17:36
  • @JanStephan Are Christa Wolf or Hermann Kant "from Germany"? --- Apart from that: I agree that "Deutsche Literatur" can mean "literature from Germany", but only with some context. Most of the time it is a synonym for "literature written in German", and I don't see a big problem with ambiguity here. – Matthias Mar 09 '16 at 22:57
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How do you define German literature?

What do you mean by "you"? If you intend to collect some personal, individual convictions of German SE users who bother to write an answer - well, let's close this question as "primarily opinion-based". If, however, you want to address some unnamed community, assuming that their members agree on a definition of German literature - then, I am afraid, it depends. But let us first look on your second question.

Does the writer have to be a German citizen for their work to qualify as German literature...?

I think this can be answered - if it doesn't come with a specific temporal context - with a clear No. Simply for the lack of such a thing as "German citizenship" for long periods in history. This quote from the German Wikipedia article on Germany illustrates the problem quite well [emphasis mine]:

Nach der Niederlegung der Reichskrone 1806 dominierten das Kaisertum Österreich, das Königreich Preußen und der Rheinbund das staatliche Geschehen im Vorstellungsraum Deutschlands; nach 1815 folgte als die deutsche Nationalität sichernder Staatenbund der Deutsche Bund unter der Führung Österreichs.

"Germany" was then a term of the imaginative space, not of the real world. It's only since 1871 that we have a succession of political entities that can be called "Germany".

Now let's come back to "it depends". As you can see from the other answers and comments it depends on who you are asking ;-) But searching for references I mainly found indications that "Deutsche Literatur" is understood as "Deutschsprachige Literatur":

  • German Wikipedia seems to treat "Deutsche Literatur" as synonym to "Deutschsprachige Literatur", both by redirection and by the introductory phrase.
  • There is the term "Prager deutsche Literatur" (see here for a lengthy discussion in German about its definition) that is also referenced by the Franz Kafka society. The term would not make much sense if "deutsche Literatur" would normally be understood as "literature from Germany". I assume its creators would have explicitly used "Prager deutschsprachige Literatur" if they had seen a necessity for that.
  • A couple of years ago a large anthology has been published under the title Kanon. Die deutsche Literatur. It also contains works by Austrian and Swiss authors - and Kafka. The title for sure is debatable, but I think it shows how the publishers expected the public to understand the term "Deutsche Literatur".

But there is also Austrian literature and Swiss literature - how do you call literature from Germany then? Well, in a context where it is clear that we are speaking about the contemporary literaric production of different countries: German literature. (Remember: it depends...) But ottherwise, you could explicitly specify the country you are referring to: "Literatur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland / DDR / Weimarer Republik / ...". And what would be the use of putting all these very different political entities in one set and contrasting it with other German speaking parts of the world? There simply has been much more continuity in what language the adjective "deutsch" is referring to that to which nationality, political entity or region.

tl;dr You can safely say that the works of Franz Kafka belong to German literature ("deutsche Literatur"), unless there is a clear context where German would be rather understood as a nationality or regional attribute. If you want to avoid any discussions, call them works of literature in German language.

Matthias
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  • I didn't exactly mean "you" in the literal sense when I wrote the question. It escaped me that people can interpret the question as "anyone is invited to give their personal definition". English is not my first language, as I have explained in a comment under my question. I was typing the sentence the way it popped into my head, the way one would offhand ask a friend "How do you say '_____' in German?" – braaains Mar 27 '16 at 19:55
  • Double comment because app doesn't allow paragraphs. Thank you for the lengthy and informative reply. I did understand German literature as more language-based rather than nationality-based, so your answer has clarified my confusion. I also wish other book readers wouldn't be so anal about which writer is German and which isn't, and just focus on the language. – braaains Mar 27 '16 at 20:01
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I would consider Kafka as much and as little German literature as I would consider Mozart's works German. Nationality surely matters when analyzing the social and political circumstances under which these works were created, but in the end what people talk about is the language.

Kafka is very common subject material for German lessons in school, so from that point of view it's surely considered German or at least German-language literature. From a historical standpoint, however, I wouldn't call it German literature.

Janek Bevendorff
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    "I would ..." - it would be helpful if you could back your personal opinion with references and facts. – Matthias Mar 08 '16 at 15:13
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    Well, I can't really. I just answered the question, how I would define it. My only evidence is Kafka as subject material in schools. – Janek Bevendorff Mar 08 '16 at 16:33
  • Thank you @JanekBevendorff. I find your answer useful because it gives me an idea of how German schools teach literature. – braaains Mar 09 '16 at 05:19