Books like die neuen leiden des jungen w.

Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. (The new Sorrows of Young W.) is an analytic collage-style novel (montage novel) and play by Ulrich Plenzdorf.

Plenzdorf wrote Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. using the East German (DDR) youth's slang of the 1970s as a societal critique. It tells the story of a young man, who wants to escape from his small middle class environment. Reading Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, he discovers similarities between him and the book's protagonist. The debut performance was on May 18, 1972 in Halle (Saale) with Reinhard Straube in the main role. It had a big success in the DDR. Later it was successfully played in the West Germany (BRD), too. In 1976 the play was made into a film in the BRD by Eberhard Itzenplitz.