Jerzy Kosinski

Examining the controversies that have accompanied the publication of novels representing the Holocaust, this compelling book explores such literature to analyze their violently mixed receptions and what this says about the ethics and practice of millennial Holocaust literature. The novels examined, including some for the first time, are: * Time's Arrow by Martin Amis * The White Hotel by D.M. Thomas * The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski * Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally * Sophie's Choice by William Styron * The Hand that Signed the Paper by Helen Darville. Taking issue with the idea that the Holocaust should only be represented factually, this compelling book argues that Holocaust fiction is not only legitimate, but an important genre that it is essential to accept. In a growing area of interest, Sue Vice adds a new, intelligent and contentious voice to the key debates within Holocaust studies.

Novels and films record and codify the cultural experiences of their people. This book explores the relationship between contemporary literature and film of the past fifty years and the ancient myths of Judeo-Christian, Greek, Celtic, and Eastern origin. Following a detailed description and explanation of both literary and film devices, stories that conform to a mythic tradition are analyzed to identify what they reveal about modern culture. This work explores such diverse subjects as heroism, coming of age, and morality. This approach to literature and film explores how contemporary fiction and film fulfill a continuum in our never-ending search to understand how life ought to be lived.

This book is a case study of the way in which ethnic identities are created and shaped by literature, focusing on the American image of the Pole from the 1830s to the present. Using a vast range of writings, some well known and others long neglected, Thomas S. Gladsky shows how the nineteenth-century view of the Pole as kindred spirit or "beau ideal" was supplanted by other literary models--anarchist, peasant, proletarian, antisemite--and culminated in the present-day idea of ethnicity as the heart of "Americanness". Part One traces the history of Polish ethnicity through the literary inventions of "host-culture" American writers, showing how these surrogates of "otherness" served the needs of a developing national literature. Gladsky deals tactfully with the delicate relationships between Poles and Jews in an extended chapter on Isaac Singer and other Jewish-American writers. He also offers extensive treatments of the writings of William Styron, Nelson Algren, Tennessee Williams, James Michener,and Jerzy Kosinski. In Part Two, Gladsky explores the Polish self through the lens of contemporary "descent" writers such as Gary Gildner, Anthony Bukoski, Stuart Dybek, Richard Bankowsky, and Anne Pellowski, who have created their own literary images while reflecting on their ethnic heritage. Throughout the book Gladsky links changing perceptions of Polish ethnicity to broader social and historical currents, showing how the Polish literary self has been a repository of American cultural history.