»Not Enough for Everyone«

The reception of the works by this author of poetry and prose, director of plays and theatres has changed: while in the early nineties, some considered his statements to be not in keeping with the times, the »lover of catastrophes« is now considered an oracle: »One needn’t worry about the anti-capitalist alternatives, because capitalism has no other enemies than itself now. […] This holds the promise of an interesting development. Connected to poverty and suffering in many parts of the world, to the explosion of population, to ecological catastrophes. One needn’t worry about utopias, only about apocalypses, if that.« This is what Müller said in 1991 – ten years before 9/11, sixteen years before the financial crisis.

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin wall, it’s time to read Heiner Müller’s texts anew. Neither the terminological triviality of a bygone post-modernity nor the ideological censorship of the Open Society were able to diminish their value. There are prophetic analyses to be discovered that already deal with the suffering and terror caused by a triumphant capitalism. This volume presents a selection of known and lesser known texts on capitalism by Heiner Müller, including poetry, prose, interviews, and excerpts from his plays. Its structure is guided by five fundamental aspects of criticism which permeate the entire œuvre: the dialects of capital, the emotion of disgust, criticism of language, the question of religion, the persistence of war.
The volume, as well as its single parts are prefaced by a short introduction by the editors, are commented and linked to both Heiner Müller’s life and work as well as to a comprehensive theoretical context. Its aim is to give space to the chance that Heiner Müller as a dialectician has already seen in the complete »perplexity of thinking«.

»This new anthology of Müller’s texts on the present shows the dramatist to be a lucid and, above all, sophisticated interpreter of life-questions after 1989.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Two decades after the death of dramatist Heiner Müller his prophecies are more relevant than ever.« Weser-Kurier

»Read the texts of the playwright who passed away in 1995: an urgent recommendation fuelled by this anthology. It’s like a stay in a pressure chamber, where you’ve voluntarily stuck your head in order to get it free.« neues deutschland

»›Not Enough for Everyone‹. Texts on Capitalism is the best introduction to Heiner Müller’s great oeuvre and at the same time extremely topical.« Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik