*Result*: CHRISTA WOLF'S SOMMERSTÜCK: AN INTENSIFIED JUNE AFTERNOON.

*This article analyzes the novel Sommerstück, by Christa Wolf. At the end of the 1970s a shift of emphasis took place in Christa Wolf's writing. Although her works were widely read in other countries, their primary focus, understandably enough, was upon the German Democratic Republic (GDR): the bright new hope it represented, the difficulties with which it had to contend, above all the human material from which it was being cast and the place of the individual within its structures. From about 1980 her canvas broadened in parallel with the increase in East-West tension and her own adoption of a more consciously feminist perspective. The attitudes she had earlier indicted as impeding a truly humane society within the GDR now came to be seen as a problem threatening the whole planet, with the arms race their most pernicious expression and Chernobyl their inevitable outcome. Kassandra (1983) and Störfall (1987) might still exhibit that subjective overlay which is the hallmark of all her writing, but the issues now being addressed were both immediate and international. Against this background the publication in early 1989 of Sommerstück, an intensely private work with little topical reference, appeared as a startling break, even a regression. In a postscript to the book the author revealed that parts of the text had been written parallel to Kein Ort. Nirgends (1979), others at the time when she was working on Kassandra. In both tone and content, however, the most immediate antecedent among her works is a piece from a far earlier stage in her career, the short story Juninachmittag (1965).*