Using and Abusing the Holocaust (Jewish Literature and Culture)

About this book

"Langer by the force of scholarship and literary precision rather than dogmatic affirmation and pathos is one of the few writers with the exception of significant poets and novelists who unsettles both our customary language and conceptual instruments. His book is a moral as well as an intellectual act of a very high order." Geoffrey Hartman author of The Longest Shadow In this new volume Langerone of the most distinguished scholars writing on Holocaust literature and representationassesses various literary efforts to establish a place in modern consciousness for the ordeal of those victimized by Nazi Germanys crimes against humanity. Essays discuss the film Life Is Beautiful the uncritical acclaim of Fragments the fake memoir by Benjamin Wilkomirski reasons for the exaggerated importance still given to Anne Franks Diary and a recent cycle of paintings on the Old Testament by Holocaust artist Samuel Bak.