Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-nptnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-04T20:57:10.856Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2018

Katja Garloff
Affiliation:
Reed College, Oregon
Agnes Mueller
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Katja Garloff
Affiliation:
Reed College, Oregon
Agnes Mueller
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Get access

Summary

A New German Jewish Literature?

IN 1995, MAXIM BILLER DECLARED that there is only one country in the world apart from Israel “in dem noch eine ganze Weile eine originäre, selbstbestimmte jüdische Literatur entstehen wird” (in which an original, autonomous Jewish literature will be produced for a long time to come), and that is Germany. According to Biller, this is so because the spatial proximity to the perpetrators and their offspring will not allow German Jews to forget about the Holocaust or assimilate to mainstream culture. Precisely because their situation is so atypical, German Jews are forced to think more deeply through their identity and articulate it more clearly. “Daß man als Jude in Deutschland nicht leben und schreiben sollte, ist logischerweise der erste und triftigste Grund dafür, warum man ausgerechnet als Jude in Deutschland besonders bewußt jüdisch lebt und schreibt.” (That one should not live and write as a Jew in Germany is naturally the first and most compelling reason why, precisely as a Jew in Germany, one lives and writes particularly consciously Jewish.) Biller's statement captures something important about German-language Jewish literature since the 1980s, and especially after German unification. This period saw the emergence of a new generation of German-speaking authors who self-identify as Jewish in interviews and other public forums, including Katja Behrens, Maxim Biller, Esther Dischereit, and Rafael Seligmann in Germany, Ruth Beckermann, Doron Rabinovici, Robert Menasse, and Robert Schindel in Austria, Chaim Noll in Israel, and Barbara Honigmann in France. The writers themselves are highly aware of the novel, collective, and precarious character of their literature; several of them reflect on their position vis-àvis German-language culture and society in nonfictional forms such as essays. The concomitant development of new German Jewish public spheres—marked, for instance, by the founding of the journal Babylon: Beiträge zur jüdischen Gegenwart, which began publication in 1986—also indicates a fundamental shift in the literary-cultural field.

The young German Jewish writers quickly drew the attention of critics and scholars, especially in the English-speaking world. Scholars who analyzed their works often spoke of the “reemergence,” “rebirth,” or “renaissance” of German Jewish literature, terms that signal both the novelty of the literature and its connectedness with an earlier period of cultural vibrancy and artistic innovation, presumably German Jewish culture before the Holocaust.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×