The Question of Genre in Holocaust Narrative: The Case of Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder

Abstract

‘Writings about the Holocaust began to appear almost simultaneously with the occurrence of the events themselves’ (Lang, 1988, p. 1). No less promptly, however, debate ensued about what could legitimately be written about something which is not ‘a conventional or “normal” subject at all’ and how this could be written. Historiography and literature have both been scrutinized as to their ability to communicate and represent the uniqueness of the Holocaust, both as event and as lived experience, the implication being that unique modes of expression and representation were needed. Witness statements, often recorded on film but also written, have noticeably been present in the discursive space opened up by Holocaust memory. The issue of truth and the crucial importance of facts that only witnesses and perhaps historians can narrate have understandably informed the controversies about legitimacy, but many have also stressed the role literary fiction can play, particularly as a conduit for imaginative transmission to later generations, now that first-hand contact with the lived reality of the Holocaust is slowly disappearing (Sicher, 1998). New types of narrative are being produced, transposing and processing, for new audiences, inherited trauma, interacting meanwhile with other forms of public and private remembrance, and raising new ethical and political questions (Horowitz in Kluge and Williams, 2009, pp. vii–viii). Our main concern will be to look at the way issues surrounding the Holocaust and genre are played out in the sphere of narrative literature, taking the example of Patrick Modiano’s Dora Bruder (1997), a prominent text from French Holocaust literature.