War, Ukraine and literature – Jonathan Safran Foer’s expedition into the depths of Central European oblivion Cover Image

Wojna, Ukraina i literatura – Jonathana Safrana Foera wyprawa w głąb środkowoeuropejskiej niepamięci
War, Ukraine and literature – Jonathan Safran Foer’s expedition into the depths of Central European oblivion

Author(s): Marta Cobel-Tokarska
Contributor(s): Katarzyna Sitkiewicz (Translator)
Subject(s): Cultural history, Sociology, Political history, Social history
Published by: Wydawnictwo OR TWP w Szczecinie

Summary/Abstract: In the article I analyze a bestseller American novel published in Polish by WAB publishing house: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I want to look into the way the author constructs his narration, how he addresses the issue of Holocaust and the issue of searching for one’s roots by members of next generations of the descendants of survivors. The novel is an important example of the new literary way of dealing with the topic of Holocaust. The interpretation contexts were drawn from, among others, work by Kaja Kaźmierska entitled Biography and Memory. The Generational Experience of the Shoah Survivor, in which the author analyses the phenomenon of returning to one’s place of birth as a biographical compulsion of the subjects of the study, as well as works of Marianne Hirsch, the creator of the term ‘postmemory'.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 73-87
  • Page Count: 15
  • Language: English, Polish