Language:
English
Year of publication:
2008
Titel der Quelle:
French Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
62,4 (2008) 417-428
Keywords:
Perec, Georges,
;
Modiano, Patrick,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Jewish literature History and criticism
;
French literature Jewish authors 20th century
;
Racism in literature
;
Antisemitism in literature
Abstract:
Interconnections between fascism and colonialism, and between antisemitism and colonial racism, perceived by postwar theorists of racial violence (such as Hannah Arendt and Aimé Césaire) have for a long time fascinated a number of writers and filmmakers in postwar France, yet their works are not often received from this point of view. Considers Georges Perec's "W ou le souvenir d'enfance" (1975) and Patrick Modiano's "Dora Bruder" (1997) to show how these are not simply post-Holocaust works but contain an overlapping vocabulary, imagery, and history of racism, dehumanization and violence which embraces the Holocaust and Empire. Argues that the interconnections sought by the theorists of modern forms of violence can be more clearly exposed in imaginative works because these blur the frontiers between the literary imagination, memory, and history. Repetitions, substitutions and transformations - the substance of the literary imagination - open up an alternative history (though one announced by Arendt and others) which challenges the compartmentalization of metropolitan history, colonial history and the history of European genocide.
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