In a small town on the Baltic coast, in a community steeped in maritime industries and local mores, a teenager falls in love with his English professor. Christian looks older than his years, Stella younger than hers. The summer they spend together is filled with boat rides to Bird Island, secret walks on the beach, and furtive glances. The emotions that blossom between Christian and Stella are aflame with passion and innocence, and with an idealistic hope of a future. The two lovers manage to keep their mutual attraction concealed, but as the hot months comes to an end, their meetings become more difficult to conceal. Stella begins at the end, at Stella Petersen’s memorial service, where Christian relives the memories he shared with his first love. There is nothing salacious about their relationship, nor is it just a case of a teenager’s crush on his teacher. Their affair changes both Christian and Stella, allows them to expand their views, and pushes them out of social and familial constraints. Theirs is a tender love story of a time, and yet speaks to any time; it is actually through death that their love is transformed. The sparseness of Siegfried Lenz’s narrative is reminiscent of the existential stringency of Ernest Hemingway. Only a master stylist ofhis standing could compose such a story that is equally modest and powerful, a work that leaves a lasting authentic impression, and that strives to comply with W.H. Auden’s famous request, “Tell me the truth about love.”
Author
Siegfried Lenz (1926 - 2014) was a German author who wrote twelve novels and produced several collections of short stories, essays, and plays for radio and the theatre. He was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt-am-Main on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth. Lenz and his wife, Liselotte, also exchanged over 100 letters with Paul Celan and his wife, Gisèle Lestrange between 1952 and 1961. Lenz was the son of a customs officer in Lyck (Elk), East Prussia. After his graduation exam in 1943, he was drafted into the navy. According to documents released in June 2007, he may have joined the Nazi party on the 12th of July 1943. Shortly before the end of World War II, he defected to Denmark, but became a prisoner of war in Schleswig-Holstein. After his release, he attended the University of Hamburg, where he studied philosophy, English, and Literary history. His studies were cut off early, however, as he became an intern for the daily paper Die Welt, and served as its editor from 1950 to 1951. It was there he met his future wife, Liselotte (d. February 5, 2006). They were married in 1949. Since 1951, Lenz worked as a freelance writer in Hamburg and was a member of the literature forum "Group 47." Together with Günter Grass, he became engaged with the Social Democratic Party and aided the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt. A champion of the movement, he was invited in 1970 to the signing of the German-Polish Treaty. Since 2003, Lenz was a visiting professor at the Düsseldorf Heinrich Heine University and a member of the organization for German orthography and proper speech.
