Finch, H orcid.org/0000-0003-3063-1308 (2023) A Wende in representing the Holocaust in German literature? From Jurek Becker to W.G. Sebald. The German Quarterly. ISSN 0016-8831
Abstract
This article examines Jurek Becker's 1976 novel Der Boxer and W. G. Sebald's critical essay on Becker “Ich möchte zu ihnen hinabsteigen und finde den Weg nicht. Zu den Romanen Jurek Beckers” (posthumously published in 2010) to show how they reflect the changing norms of Holocaust testimony in German literature. Becker's well-received novel narrates the refusal of a traumatized Jewish survivor to conform to the normative expectations of Holocaust testimony in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Sebald's essay, written in the early 1990s, however, accuses the novel of being inauthentic and by implication unethical. The polemic demonstrates Sebald's attempt to establish norms of Holocaust representation in the period following the Wende. Becker's novel and Sebald's response to it shed light on restrictive norms and expectations that surrounded Jewish survivor testimony to the Holocaust, both in the GDR during the 1970s and in post-unification Germany of the early 1990s.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author. The German Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association of Teachers of German. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) > German (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 28 Apr 2023 13:31 |
Last Modified: | 19 Jul 2023 15:32 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12353 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:198689 |