Spring Awakening - Hardcover

by Frank Wedekind (Author)

Set in late-19th century Germany, it concerns teenagers who are discovering the inner and outer tumult of sexuality. The plays performance was threatened with closure when the city's Commissioner of Licenses claimed that the play was pornographic, due to its portrayal of abortion, homosexuality, rape, child abuse and suicide, but a New York trial court issued an injunction to allow the production to proceed.

Back Jacket

Spring's Awakening is a tragi-comedy of teenage sex. Its fourteen-year-old heroine, Wendla, is killed by abortion pills. The young Moritz, terrorized by the world around him, and especially by his teachers, shoots himself. The ending seems likely to be the suicide of Moritz's friend, Melchior, but in a confrontation with a mysterious stranger (the famous Masked Man) he finally manages to shed his illusions and face the consequences.

Author Biography

Jonathan Franzen is the author of The Corrections, winner of the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pen/Faulkner. He is also the author of Freedom, selected for Oprah's Book Club, The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion, and two works of nonfiction, How to Be Alone and The Discomfort Zone, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. In 1996, he was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists. He lives in New York City and Santa Cruz, California.