And Then Came Mirna

The party’s over. The young desperadoes from Sybille Berg’s And Now: The World! or The So-called Outside Means Nothing to Me have become mothers – either as single parents, in traditional partnerships or as part of a commune. Their glorious careers having failed to materialise, they realise on reaching their early to mid-thirties that they are horrifyingly average while their drive to change their lives fundamentally is dwindling. Yet Berg’s female characters manage to find a new rebelliousness, want to leave their gentrified neighbourhoods behind and move to the country, away from state welfare payments and towards autonomous self-sufficiency. Their children, however, are not exactly enthused at the idea. Consequently Sibylle Berg has cleverly constructed another level beyond her lead characters’ maternal diatribes on gender issues, capitalism, climate change, civil wars around the globe and the omnipotence of Google: The figure of young Mirna, a daughter, embodies a new generation that has developed radically different (and rather pragmatic) ways of engaging and dealing with their parents’ fears and ideals.