Narrating the Holocaust - Softcover

Reiter, Andrea; Camiller, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826447376 ISBN 13: 9780826447371

Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic, 2000

Synopsis

Few Holocaust survivors attach any meaning to camp life itself. Yet, most agree that the difficulties of coping with the misery and its lingering memories were eased if some purpose - whether in the form of physical or psychological resistance or of hope for a future life, reunited with their loved ones - could be found. Many survivors turned to writing about their experiences.Reiter shows how survivors who were professional authors adapted certain literary genres, while non-professional writers-the vast majority-related their experiences in report form. A comparison between these memoirs and the more frequently discussed camp novels identifies the different narrative strategies.

About this title

About the Author

Andrea Reiter is a Research Fellow at the School of Modern Languages, Univeristy of Southampton, UK.

Review

"Clever and well-researched...[a] worthwhile study of survivors' writing." - CHOICE, April 2001

"In Narrating the Holocaust, Andrea Reiter breaks ground in two ways. First, she focuses on a wide range of testimonies written by survivors, most of which have not been available to a general, English-speaking audience, and which would not be conventionally classified as 'literature' of any sort, and subjects them to literary analysis, rather than dealing with them as historical documents. Second, she classifies these works systematically according to the different 'linguistic devices' and generic strategies that they employ." - David Brauner

"...this is an important book in that it brings to light material that is still unfamiliar to most scholars in the field"

(Biography)

"Narrating the Holocaust is the kind of initiatory work that someone had to write, and for that, we should thank the author...I believe it is important that someone has been willing to treat Holocaust narratives as something other than sacred texts. To construct a means whereby we can develop a rhetorical analysis of "non-literary" texts establishes a beginning for our understanding these narratives in a context that is more than theological, historical, psychological, or philosophical. As such, this book should prove a welcome addition to the libraries of all students of Holocaust literature." - Michael J. Hoffman, H-Net Reviews, March 2002 (Michael J. Hoffman H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online)

"Clever and well-researched...[a] worthwhile study of survivors' writing." - CHOICE, April 2001

“In Narrating the Holocaust, Andrea Reiter breaks ground in two ways. First, she focuses on a wide range of testimonies written by survivors, most of which have not been available to a general, English-speaking audience, and which would not be conventionally classified as 'literature’ of any sort, and subjects them to literary analysis, rather than dealing with them as historical documents. Second, she classifies these works systematically according to the different 'linguistic devices’ and generic strategies that they employ." - David Brauner

“...this is an important book in that it brings to light material that is still unfamiliar to most scholars in the field"

(Sanford Lakoff)

“Narrating the Holocaust is the kind of initiatory work that someone had to write, and for that, we should thank the author...I believe it is important that someone has been willing to treat Holocaust narratives as something other than sacred texts. To construct a means whereby we can develop a rhetorical analysis of “non-literary” texts establishes a beginning for our understanding these narratives in a context that is more than theological, historical, psychological, or philosophical. As such, this book should prove a welcome addition to the libraries of all students of Holocaust literature.” - Michael J. Hoffman, H-Net Reviews, March 2002 (Sanford Lakoff H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online)

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0826447376
• ISBN 13: 9780826447371
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256