Magic realism in Holocaust literature

Jenni Adams

Magic Realism in Holocaust Literature is the first major study of an emerging tendency in Holocaust representation internationally. Analysing in detail works by Jonathan Safran Foer, David Grossman, D.M. Thomas, Andř Schwarz-Bart and Markus Zusak, it explores the capacity of supernatural elements to dramatize the ethical and representational difficulties which surround the Holocaust's literary representation. Magic realism is, it suggests, an important strategy in attempts to continue the project of Holocaust representation into the post-testimonial era, enabling a form of literary engagement with these events that nevertheless acknowledges its ethical and experiential distance from the real. This original and insightful study sharply renegotiates our existing understanding of Holocaust literature through the presentation of a new critical framework within which post-testimonial Holocaust literature can be understood. It will appeal to scholars and students of Holocaust literature, magic realism, and twentieth and twenty-first century fiction more broadly.