"Langer, by the force of scholarship and literary precision rather than dogmatic affirmation and pathos, is one of the few writers, with the exception of significant poets and novelists, who unsettles both our customary language and conceptual instruments. His book is a moral as well as an intellectual act of a very high order." -Geoffrey Hartman, author of The Longest Shadow In this new volume, Langer-one of the most distinguished scholars writing on Holocaust literature and representation-assesses various literary efforts to establish a place in modern consciousness for the ordeal of those victimized by Nazi Germany's crimes against humanity. Essays discuss the film Life Is Beautiful, the uncritical acclaim of Fragments, the fake memoir by Benjamin Wilkomirski, reasons for the exaggerated importance still given to Anne Frank's Diary, and a recent cycle of paintings on the Old Testament by Holocaust artist Samuel Bak.

Author Biography

Lawrence L. Langer is Professor of English Emeritus at Simmons College, Boston. Among his numerous books are Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; Preempting the Holocaust; and The Game Continues: Chess in the Art of Samuel Bak (IUP, 1999). He lives in West Newton, Massachusetts.