Persecution, Extermination, Literature

Works of art like Art Spiegelman's Maus and Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List have earned critical and popular acclaim for their moving portrayals of the horror of the holocaust. Not everyone, however, is convinced that concentration and extermination camp experiences lend themselves to treatment in the visual arts and literature.
Persecution, Extermination, Literature discusses the difficult and delicate problem of how to approach the literature on the persecution and extermination of the Jews during the Nazi regime. Dresden's aim is two-fold: on the one hand to establish the conditions in which holocaust literature was produced, and on the other to explore the implications of the reader's responses to this writing. He argues that the subject of persecution and extermination makes it impossible to use customary criteria to judge works of art, and in so doing, he raises general questions about literature and reality, about the notions of authenticity and truth, and about the relationship between life and art. The unusual combination of a deeply felt tribute to the victims of the Nazi terror and a lucid investigation of the essential role of literature in keeping the past alive is presented in a series of essays, translated here for the first time into English.

Sem Dresden is Professor Emeritus of French and Comparative Literature, Leiden University, The Netherlands.