Short Biography

Sara Landa studied German Language and Literature, History, Chinese Studies, Eastern Slavistics and European Literatures and Cultures in Freiburg, Beijing and Strasbourg (EUCOR). Her PhD dissertation on German-Chinese poetry translations and transformations was published with De Gruyter under the title “Chinesisch-deutsche Lyrikdialoge”. Research interests include in particular questions of comparative literature and translation, ecocriticism, literature and politics, literatures of the 20th and 21st century.

Research Project

The study analyses the intricate connections between aesthetics, ecology and politics between the late 1960s and the transition period around 1989. From a transcultural perspective, it discusses the interplay of texts from the GDR, the Soviet Union and the PRC with their political contexts and literary systems, compares them and traces ecocritical networks. In particular, the study asks how the ecological crises pose a dual challenge: a challenge of literary representation, confronting literature with the need to redefine the relationship of ‚real ‘and fictional worlds and in turn challenge the political and social system, thereby negotiating agency.