"But Jakob always walked across the tracks." This sentence marks the beginning of Uwe Johnson's debut novel "Speculations about Jakob," published in 1959. With this novel, his own story as a poet of both Germanys began. He rejected the label. Nevertheless, Johnson remains the narrator of both East and West. The Uwe Johnson collected works edition (Rostock edition) is a historical-critical edition that is set to be published in a total of 22 volumes across 43 parts in three sections: Works, Writings, and Letters. It is being developed as an academic project by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences at the University of Rostock. It is edited by Holger Helbig and Ulrich Fries, with contributions from Katja Leuchtenberger. The holdings of the Uwe Johnson Archive, a deposit of the Johannes and Annitta Fries Foundation at the University of Rostock, form the basis of the edition. It will be published.