Holocaust Fiction and the Question of Impiety

This book discusses the issues underlying contemporary Holocaust fiction. Using Gillian Rose’s theory of Holocaust piety, it argues that, rather than enhancing our understanding of the Holocaust, contemporary fiction has instead become overly focused on gratuitous representations of bodies in pain. The book begins by discussing the locations and imagery which have come to define our understanding of the Holocaust, before then highlighting how this gradual simplification has led to an increasing sense of emotional distance from the historical past. Holocaust fiction, the book argues, attempts to close this emotional and temporal distance by creating an emotional connection to bodies in pain. Using different concepts relating to embodied experience – from Sonia Kruks’ notion of feeling-with to Alison Landsberg’s prosthetic memory – the book analyses several key examples of Holocaust literature and film to establish whether fiction still possesses the capacity to approach the Holocaust impiously.
David John Dickson is a literature specialist, focusing on fiction relating to the Holocaust. He has previously published papers relating to the ethical representation of the Holocaust past – from Heather Morris’s presentation of gendered suffering, to the fictional representation of death in the gas chamber. He also has an interest in the history of the Jewish ghetto police, and has published a paper relating to the confessional diary of Calel Perechodnik.