During the fifty years since the end of hostilities, European literary memories of the war have undergone considerable change, influenced by the personal experiences of writers as well as changing political, social, and cultural factors. This volume examines changing ways of remembering the war in the literatures of France, Germany, and Italy; changes in the subject of memory, and in the relations between fiction, autobiography, and documentary, with the focus being on the extent to which shared European memories of the war have been constructed.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Studying European Literary Memories Helmut Peitsch PART I: THE GERMAN SOLDIER'S MEMORY Chapter 1. Private and Public Filters: Memories of War in Heinrich Böll’s Fiction and Nonfiction J.H. Reid PART II: THE RESISTANCE MEMORY The Female Resister Chapter 2. Ordinary Heroines: Resistance and Romance in the War Fiction of Elsa Triolet Diana Holmes Chapter 3. ‘This Book Does Not Want to Be a Work of Art. This Book Is Truth.’ The Diaries of Ruth Andreas-Friedrich Irmela von der Lühe Chapter 4. A Woman’s Perspective: Autobiography and History in Giovanna Zangrandi’s Resistance Narratives Penny Morris The Male Resister Chapter 5. Vercors – Writing the Unspeakable: From Le Silence de la mer (1942) to La Puissance du jour (1951) William Kidd Chapter 6. ‘A History Full of Holes’? France and the French Resistance in the Work of Stephan Hermlin Dennis Tate Chapter 7. War, Civil War and the Problem of Violence in Calvino and Pavese Sarah Morgan Chapter 8. Imagining Losers in Bufalino’s Diceria dell’untore Peter Hainsworth PART III: THE FASCIST'S MEMORY Chapter 9. Memory and Chronicle: Louis-Ferdinand Céline and the D’un château l’autre Trilogy Nicholas Hewitt Chapter 10. Portrait of the Poet as a Dead Man. Ernst Jünger’s Writing in the Second World War: Strahlungen Justus Fetscher Chapter 11. Changing Identities Through Memory: Malaparte’s Self-figurations in Kaputt Charles Burdett PART IV: THE VICTIM'S MEMORY Chapter 12. Reviewing Memory: Wiesel, Testimony and Self-reading Colin Davis Chapter 13. Primo Levi. The Duty of Memory Robert Gordon Chapter 14. La Douleur: Duras, Amnesia and Desire Emma Wilson Chapter 15. Myth, Memory, Testimony, Jewishness in Grete Weil’s Meine Schwester Antigone Moray McGowan PART V: THE MEDIA OF MEMORY: MAY 1968 AND CINEMA Chapter 16. L’Armée des ombres and Le Chagrin et la pitié: Reconfigurations of Law, Legalities and the State in Post-1968 France Margaret Atack Chapter 17. Alexander Kluge: Germany – An Experience of Words and Images Klaus R. Scherpe Chapter 18. Fascism and Anti-fascism Reviewed: Generations, History and Film in Italy after 1968 David Forgacs PART VI: WOMEN'S WRITING AND THE QUEST FOR THE FATHER Chapter 19. Remembering the Collaborating Father in Marie Chaix’s Les Lauriers du lac de Constance and Evelyne Le Garrec’s La Rive allemande de ma mémoire Claire Gorrara Chapter 20. Seeing the Father: Memory and Identity Construction in Elisabeth Plessen’s Mitteilung an den Adel Anne Moss Chapter 21. Intimations of Patriarchy: Memories of Wartime Japan in Dacia Maraini’s Bagheria Judith Bryce PART VII: A CHILD'S MEMORY Chapter 22. A Child in Time: Patrick Modiano and the Memory of the Occupation Alan Morris Chapter 23. Childhood Memory and Moral Responsibility: Christa Wolf’s Kindheitsmuster Chris Weedon Chapter 24. Strategies for Remembering: Auschwitz, Mother and Writing in Edith Bruck Adalgisa Giorgio PART VII: AFTER THE COLD WAR: EUROPEAN LITERATURE AND THE POLITICS OF MEMORY Chapter 25. Trauma and Absence Omer Bartov Chapter 26. Nonrational Discourse in a Work of Reason: Peter Weiss’s Anti-fascist Novel Die Ästhetik des Widerstands Robert Cohen Chapter 27. Fifty Years On: German Children of the War Remember Jost Hermand Chapter 28. Memories of Resistance, Resistances of Memory Luisa Passerini Notes on Contributors Bibliography Index