Stefan Heym: The Perpetual Dissident

Stefan Heym’s uncompromising stance made him unpopular with a succession of political regimes. The Nazis, the CIA and the East German secret police all held files on him. He was Hitler’s youngest literary exile; McCarthyism was to drive him from the USA; and even in what appeared his natural home - the first socialist state on German soil - he was to become the country’s leading dissident. By continuing to compose in both English and German, however, he maintained an international reputation, and has been translated into over twenty languages. This study traces Heym’s career principally by reference to his novels, journalism, and political essays, from his earliest works. All his novels are analysed, the major ones in depth, and English translations of all German quotations are provided. Peter Hutchinson focuses particularly on Heym’s battles against Stalinism and censorship, and the way in which his courageous defiance of a repressive regime inspired others and paved the way for the ‘new’ eastern literature of the eighties.