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Materialitet och form i Irina Liebmanns dokumentariska Berlinskildringar

Abstract

This article asks how the specific materiality and material conditions of Berlin is reflected in as well as shapes Irina Liebmann’s writing about the old city center (Mitte) before and after 1989. I focus on three texts: a book of interviews with East German tenants, Berliner Mietshaus (1982), the essay Stille Mitte von Berlin (2002) and the autofictional novel Die Große Hamburger Straße (2020). I introduce the theoretical concept “spatial literature” to denote a work of fiction or non-fiction that foregrounds spatial structures and their materiality in both its content and its form. I argue that Liebmanns Berlin texts evoke the textual spaces “street” and “tenement building” through techniques such as a frequent use of spatially connoted concepts, sensory descriptions of the materiality of spatial structures and typographical devices. In two of Liebmann’s books, a further spatio-visual dimension arises when she juxtaposes her writing with her own photographs of dilapidated buildings, abandoned stores and ruin lots in 1980s Mitte. Due to a rapid gentrification process and the displacement of its earlier inhabitants after 1989, Mitte is now a popular area for the middle class and tourists. I conclude that Liebmann’s textual techniques and photographs serve as means of making these material changes to the spatial and social structures of Berlin tangible for the reader of her texts.