The Search for Christa T. / Christa Wolf

In this novel, from the pages of which a steady cold wind blows, the one-time East-German Wolf writes of the title character:

"One's wishes are only what one is capable of. Thus her deep and persistent wish guarantees the secret existence of her work: this long and never-ending journey toward oneself."

In Demian, the paperback cover art for which ranks among the top ten of all time, Hesse's narrator ventures:

"Each man had only one genuine vocation--to find the way to himself."

But to define the "self"--work of a lifetime.  Cf. Being & Nothingness, The Way of Zen, and on and on.  Consider Demian's (unattributed) epigraph:

"I wanted only to try to live in accord with the promptings which came from my true self.  Why was that so very difficult?"