Contemporary Jewish writing in Europe : a guide /

Liska (Univ. of Antwerp, Belgium) and Nolden (Wellesley College) insightfully contextualize historic and cultural national frames and elucidate common themes and genres of post-Holocaust literature. In addition to offering strong essays on familiar Austrian, German, and French works, the volume elucidates less-familiar writers of Poland, Russia, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Scandinavia through close readings of major figures or broad national overviews. Whereas the survivor generation focused on bearing witness to Nazi crimes, dominant among the themes treated by second- and third-generation writers is the Shoah legacy--Holocaust silence in representation of rupture, displacement, and loss juxtaposed with reconnection/revitalization of Jewish identity and community. The essayists read the contemporary, largely secular search for Jewish identity against a variety of backdrops: student-led social and political protests of 1968, the demise of communism, the Arab-Israeli conflict. Including good bibliographies with sources in languages of origin and English translations, this volume is an excellent complement to Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century, ed. by Sorrel Kerbel et al. (CH, Sep'03, 41-0021); Holocaust Literature, ed. by S. Lillian Kremer (CH, Jul'03, 40-6141); Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture, ed. by Glenda Abramson (CH, Sep'05, 43-0016); and volumes in Nebraska's "Jewish Writing in the Contemporary World" series. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers, all levels. S. L. Kremer emerita, Kansas State University