Christa Wolf (born March 18, 1929 in Gorzow Wielkpolski, Poland, as Christa Ihlenfeld) is the best-known writer to emerge from the former East Germany. She is a literary critic, novelist, and essayist.
Wolf and her family were expelled from her home across the new border and they settled in Mecklenburg, in what would become East Germany. She joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany in 1949. She studied literature at Jena and Leipzig. After her graduation she worked for the German Writers' Union and became an editor for a publishing company.
Wolf's breakthrough as a writer came in 1963 with the publishing of Divided Heaven. Other subsequent works include The Quest for Christa T. (1968), Patterns of Childhood (1976), Cassandra (1983), and On the Way to Taboo (1994).
During the era of the DDR, Wolf was openly critical of the leadership of East Germany, yet she maintained a loyalty to the values of Marx and opposed German reunification. She has been criticised for cooperating with the Stasi.
She lives in Berlin with her husband, Gerhard Wolf.