Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work - Hardcover

9780415929851: Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415929857 ISBN 13: 9780415929851

Publisher: Routledge, 2002

Featuring 300 alphabetically organized bio-critical essays on writers of memoirs, novels, poetry, short stories, and drama, ranging in length from 1,500 to 7,000 words, this comprehensive scholarly work presents a broad spectrum of voices remembering, interpreting, and reinterpreting one of the twentieth century's most politically and emotionally charged events. Including writers whose works first appeared in Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish, this reference provides wide international coverage, though its focus will be on writers whose work is available in English. It will prove a valuable resource to students, scholars, general readers, or to anyone interested in world history. Also includes maps.

For a full list of entries, sample entries, and more, visit the website Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work website.

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About the Author:

S. Lillian Kremer, University Distinguished Professor of English at Kansas State University, has written numerous articles on Holocaust literature. She is the author of two well-received books: Women's Holocaust Writing: Memory and Imagination, and Witness Through the Imagination: Jewish-American Holocaust Literature.

From Booklist:

A major addition to Holocaust Studies, this encyclopedia synthesizes a wide range of literary voices and provides a compelling look at more than 300 novelists, poets, memoirists, dramatists, and others writers who experienced the Holocaust (1933-45) or otherwise integrated the subject into their works. Some experienced the Holocaust firsthand in places like Auschwitz, the Warsaw Ghetto, or Babi Yar, while others lived through it in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere. Still others were influenced as second- and third-generation writers, as children of survivors, or via other routes. The editor is a professor of English at Kansas State University, where she teaches courses in Holocaust literature and film. The wide range of contributors (from Europe, the U.S., Israel, and elsewhere) greatly enhances the relevance of this work, as scholars from around the world interpret the Holocaust from a variety of perspectives.

The encyclopedia provides comprehensive coverage of authors who made the Holocaust the primary focus of their writings (Aharon Appelfeld, Elie Weisel, Viktor Frankl, Nava Semel, and Primo Levi, among others). It also has a significant number of Jewish and some non-Jewish authors who may not be viewed as "Holocaust writers," such as Yehudah Amichai, Cynthia Ozick, Jean-Paul Sartre, and William Styron. The authors have written in Hebrew, English, Yiddish, Polish, German, French, and other languages, but most if not all have had their works translated into English.

The detailed entries (between 2,000 and 8,000 words long) treat how each author used her or his literary talents to respond to the Holocaust. Each entry follows a similar pattern of describing the author's work and then placing that work within the framework of Holocaust literature and other forms of literary expression. Generous quotes from the writers' works enhance the analysis and give the entries a powerful journalistic feel without detracting from the academic integrity. Each entry ends with an exhaustive bibliography of primary and secondary sources related to the author's work.

The appendixes bring together key events, historical figures, Holocaust literary themes and genres, authors' birthplaces and language composition, and other topics. These appendixes will greatly enhance research by tying together different subcategories of Holocaust studies. For example, researchers will be able to identify which writers experienced specific events, such as Kristallnacht or the Kindertransport, and which wrote on specific themes, such as postwar Jewish identity and resistance to Nazi persecution.

This work has a number of similarities with the recently published one-volume Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature [RBB S 1 02]. The alphabetically arranged entries in both are well written, and some of the same scholars contributed to both titles (including the editor of this encyclopedia). Both are strong survey texts that help put Holocaust writing into a historical and literary context. But the current work is much more comprehensive and includes both first- and second-generation Holocaust writers (and some third-generation). Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature has about 130 entries and includes only first-generation writers.

Libraries with Holocaust studies courses and others with an interest in this topic should purchase this title, as the number of authors covered and the strong bibliographic component make it an impressive resource for researchers and other serious students. This would also be an excellent purchase for large public libraries. RBB
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