Muriel Cormican on Lou Andreas-Salomé

“Published in a traditional women's genre, Das Haus had the potential to reach far beyond limited groups of female intellectuals into the homes and lives of women who might be alienated or threatened by the political articulations of champions of the German's women's movement but could still be influenced by feminist notions of emancipation in popular fiction.”

“Can a woman be the subject of the gaze, even if she is also its object? . . . Revealing both women's and men's subjection to prevailing categorizations of gendered sexuality and identity, the novellas in Menschenkinder do not merely illuminate the problems of female identity but also touch on corresponding difficulties for men.”