Expands the definition ofsecond-generation literature to include texts written from the point of view of the children of Nazi perpetrators.

Expands the definition of second-generation literature to include texts written from the point of view of the children of Nazi perpetrators.

Among historical events of the 20th century, the Holocaust is unrivaled as the subject of both scholarly and literary writing. Literary responses include not only thousands of autobiographical and fictional texts written by survivors, but also, more recently, works by writers who are not survivors but nevertheless feel compelled to write about the Holocaust. Writers from what is known as thesecond generation have produced texts that express their feeling of being powerfully marked by events of which they have had no direct experience. This book expands the commonly-used definition ofsecond-generation literature, which refers to texts written from the perspective ofthe children of survivors, to include texts written from the point of view of the children of Nazi perpetrators. With its innovative focus on the literary legacy of both groups, it investigates how second-generation writers employsimilar tropes of stigmatization to express their troubled relationships to their parents' histories. Through readings of nine American, German, and French literary texts, Erin McGlothlin demonstrates how an anxiety with signification is manifested in the very structure of second-generation literature, revealing the extent to which the literary texts themselves are marked by the continuing aftershocks of the Holocaust.

Erin McGlothlin is Assistant Professor of German at Washington University in St. Louis.

Introduction: Rupture and Repair: Marking the Legacy of the Second Generation
"A Tale Repeated Over and Over Again": Polyidentity and Narrative Paralysis in Thane Rosenbaum'sElijah Visible
"In Auschwitz We Didn't Wear Watches": Marking Time in Art Spiegelman'sMaus
"Because We Need Traces": Robert Schindel'sGebürtig and the Crisis of the Second-Generation Witness
Documenting Absence in Patrick Modiano'sDora Bruder and Katja Behrens's "Arthur Mayer, or The Silence"
"Under a False Name": Peter Schneider'sVati and the Misnomer of Genre
My Mother Wears a Hitler Mustache: Marking the Mother in Niklas Frank and Joshua Sobol'sDer Vater
The Future ofVäterliteratur: Bernhard Schlink'sDer Vorleser and Uwe Timm'sAm Beispiel meines BrudersAm Beispiel meines Bruders
Conclusion: The "Glass Wall": Marked by an Invisible Divide
Works Cited
Index