Imagining the Unimaginable examines popular fiction's treatment of the
Holocaust in the dystopian and alternate history genres of speculative
fiction, analyzing the effectiveness of the genre's major works as a
lens through which to view the most prominent historical trauma of the
20th century. It surveys a range of British and American authors, from
science fiction pulp to Pulitzer Prize winners, building on
scholarship across disciplines, including Holocaust studies, trauma
studies, and science fiction studies. The conventional discourse
around the Holocaust is one of the unapproachable, unknowable, and the
unimaginable. The Holocaust has been compared to an earthquake,
another planet, another universe, a void. It has been said to be
beyond language, or else have its own incomprehensible language,
beyond art, and beyond thought. The 'othering' of the event has
spurred the phenomenon of non-realist Holocaust literature, engaging
with speculative fiction and its history of the uncanny, the
grotesque, and the inhuman. This book examines the most common forms
of nonmimetic Holocaust fiction, the dystopia and the alternate
history, while firmly positioning these forms within a broader pattern
of non-realist engagements with the Holocaust.
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Speculative Fiction and the Holocaust
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781501350566
Publisert
2020
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter