Holocaust Migration in German Jewish Literatures

Analysing the past two decades of young literature grappling with Holocaust memory and migration stories, Agnes Mueller engages with diverse fictional texts first written in German to explore current debates – and challenge entrenched ideas – on Israel, the German Democratic Republic, gender, Jewish and Muslim identity, and antisemitism.

Analysing the past two decades of literature on Holocaust memory and migration stories, Agnes Mueller engages with writers such as W. G. Sebald, Thomas Bernhard, Edgar Hilsenrath, Benjamin Stein, Mirna Funk, Fred Wander, Barbara Honigmann, Julia Franck, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Olga Grjasnowa, and Kat Kaufmann to explore current debates on Israel, the German Democratic Republic, gender, Jewish and Muslim identity, and antisemitism. Her new readings of German-language texts by younger authors present robust challenges to entrenched ideas concerning the singularity of the Holocaust, multidirectional memory, and a range of other memory debates. Jewish identity and Muslim identity are shown in direct conversation with other migrants' experiences, and literature is revealed to be a brave space where Holocaust memory is newly imagined. Mueller's study invites a radically new way to think about the Holocaust and sheds new and valuable light on adjacent contemporary discourses.