Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Focussing on individual authors from Heinrich Boll to G3~nther Grass, Hermann Lenz to Peter Schneider, "The Language of Silence" offers an analysis of West German literature as it tries to come to terms with the Holocaust and its impact on postwar West German society.
Exploring postwar literature as the barometer of Germany's unconsciously held values as well as of its professed conscience, Ernestine Schlant demonstrates that the confrontation with the Holocaust has shifted over the decades from repression, circumvention, and omission to an open acknowledgement of the crimes. Yet even today a "language of silence" remains since the victims and their suffering are still overlooked and ignored. Learned and exacting, Schlant's study makes an important contribution to our understanding of postwar German culture.
Table of Contents
The first postwar decade /Heinrich Boll,Wolfgang Koeppen --Documentary literature /Alexander Kluge,Gunter Grass --Autobiographical novels /generational discord --Autobiographical novels /Hanns-Josef Ortheil --The war on the Eastern front /Hermann Lenz --Ruptures and displacements /Gert Hofmann --Restitutionof personal identity? /Alfred Andersch,Peter Hurtling,Gert Hofmann --Speeches and controversies --Post-unification /Bernhard Schlink,Peter Schneider,W.G. Sebald.