all the ones to follow were staged in exemplary fashion in Rostock and other theaters in the GDR. Weiss frequently visited East Berlin and became friends with many East German writers and artists. He developed a collaborative relationship and eventually a close friendship with Manfred Haiduk, professor of literature in Rostock. After Weiss wrote his play about Trotsky, which East German party functionaries interpreted as an anti-Leninist provocation, he for a while became persona non grata, but the relationship soon revived. Weiss was one of only a handful of western artists and intellectuals whose work attracted wide interest in both Germanies though in both states he was also subjected to distrust and denunciations. During this period Brecht's influence on Weiss's plays became more evident. He also became obsessed with Dante's Divine Comedy the influence of which is present in all his works from the mid-1960s until his death. In 1965, Weiss wrote the documentary play The Investigation (Die Ermittlung) on the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials. Like Marat/Sade it attracted wide international attention and became the focus of heated debates about the 'right' way of representing Auschwitz and about who gets to decide what is acceptable and what is not. This was followed by two experimental plays about the struggle for self-determination in the 'Third World': Gesang vom lusitanischen Popanz (Song of the Lusitanian Bogey [a better translation would be Canto of the Lusitanian Bogey] 1967) about Angola, and Viet Nam Diskurs (Viet Nam Discourse, 1968). The next two plays once again focused on intellectuals and writers in times of upheaval: Trotzki im Exil (Trotsky in Exile, 1970) and Hölderlin (1971). Between 1971 and 1981 Weiss worked on his opus magnum: his three part 1000 page novel on the European resistance against Nazi Germany, The Aesthetics of Resistance. Weiss received numerous awards, among them the Charles Veillon Award, 1963; the Lessing Prize, 1965; the Heinrich Mann Prize, 1966; the Carl Albert Anderson Prize, 1967; the Thomas Dehler Prize, 1978; the Cologne Literature Prize, 1981; the Bremen Literature Prize, 1982; the Swedish Theatre Critics Prize, 1982; and finally the highest German literary award, the Georg Büchner Prize, 1982. Selected works All works were originally written in German unless otherwise noted. English translations and, where applicable, place of publication, publisher and date of English language publication, are in parentheses. Plays 1949 Der Turm (The Tower. New York: Dutton, 1967, pp. 315–48) 1952 Die Versicherung