The documentary critique in recent German postcolonial literature

Why do German novels about the colonial era reproduce so many of the historical records upon which they base their fictions? By foregrounding historical documentation-letters, official records, maps, photographs-narratives by Uwe Timm, Gerhard Seyfried, and Giselher W. Hoffmann become, in a sense, stories about documents. By assigning the historical document such a conspicuous role, these authors variously emphasize both its construction and its reception over time. The story of historical documentation becomes a means for writers to question, intentionally or otherwise, the role of "the document" in constructing a truthful representation of a traumatic past.