Miriam Carbe's 'Unerwünschte Töchter' Traces Female Bourgeois Life Through Diaries

Miriam Carbe's novel 'Unerwünschte Töchter' draws on the diaries of her female ancestors to create a vivid panorama of bourgeois womanhood from 1912 to 1967. Each of the 32 chapters is titled 'Unerwünscht' (Unwanted), referring to the daughters Margarethe, Marianne, Monika, and Miriam herself. The book explores how misogynistic patterns were perpetuated by women, attributing this to the two world wars, social decline, bourgeois heritage, restrictive gender roles, the later GDR, and family genes. Carbe follows the perspective of each woman, using original diary excerpts to depict their childhood and adolescent experiences without sentimentality. The narrative includes details such as a young woman's desire to marry a famous art professor rather than a craftsman. The author's storytelling transforms the raw diary material into a lively panorama. The fate of the last unwanted daughter, presumably Carbe herself, remains open, but the book's existence suggests a break in the cycle of self-rejection.