What is the difference between writing a novel about the Holocaust and fabricating a memoir? Do narratives about the Holocaust have a special obligation to be 'truthful'--that is, faithful to the facts of history? Or is it okay to lie in such works? In her provocative study A Thousand Darknesses, Ruth Franklin investigates these questions as they arise in the most significant works of Holocaust fiction, from Tadeusz Borowski's Auschwitz stories to Jonathan Safran Foer's postmodernist family history. Franklin argues that the memory-obsessed culture of the last few decades has led us to mistakenly focus on testimony as the only valid form of Holocaust writing. As even the most canonical texts have come under scrutiny for their fidelity to the facts, we have lost sight of the essential role that imagination plays in the creation of any literary work, including the memoir. Taking a fresh look at memoirs by Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi, and examining novels by writers such as Piotr Rawicz, Jerzy Kosinski, W.G. Sebald, and Wolfgang Koeppen, Franklin makes a persuasive case for literature as an equally vital vehicle for understanding the Holocaust (and for memoir as an equally ambiguous form). The result is a study of immense depth and range that offers a lucid view of an often cloudy field.

Winner • National Book Critics Circle Award (Biography) Winner • Edgar Award (Critical/Biographical) Winner • Bram Stoker Award (Nonfiction) A New York Times Notable Book A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Pick of the Year Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Entertainment Weekly, NPR, TIME, Boston Globe, NYLON, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist In this “thoughtful and persuasive” biography, award-winning biographer Ruth Franklin establishes Shirley Jackson as a “serious and accomplished literary artist” (Charles McGrath, New York Times Book Review). Instantly heralded for its “masterful” and “thrilling” portrayal (Boston Globe), Shirley Jackson reveals the tumultuous life and inner darkness of the literary genius behind such classics as “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House. In this “remarkable act of reclamation” (Neil Gaiman), Ruth Franklin envisions Jackson as “belonging to the great tradition of Hawthorne, Poe and James” (New York Times Book Review) and demonstrates how her unique contribution to the canon “so uncannily channeled women’s nightmares and contradictions that it is ‘nothing less than the secret history of American women of her era’ ” (Washington Post). Franklin investigates the “interplay between the life, the work, and the times with real skill and insight, making this fine book a real contribution not only to biography, but to mid-20th-century women’s history” (Chicago Tribune). “Wisely rescu[ing] Shirley Jackson from any semblance of obscurity” (Lena Dunham), Franklin’s invigorating portrait stands as the definitive biography of a generational avatar and an American literary genius.

A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diary "Trenchant. . . . An essential look at the diarist's legacy."--Publishers Weekly In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929-1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in hiding, now translated into more than seventy languages, is the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust. Comprehensively researched but experimental in spirit, this book chronicles and interprets Anne's life as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II while also telling the story of the diary--its multiple drafts, its discovery, its reception, and its message for today's world. Writing alongside Anne rather than over her, Franklin explores the day-to-day perils of the Holocaust in the Netherlands as well as Anne's ultimate fate, restoring her humanity and agency in all their messiness, heroism, and complexity. With antisemitism once again in the news, The Many Lives of Anne Frank takes a fresh and timely look at the debates around Anne's life and work, including the controversial adaptations of the diary, Anne's evolution as a fictional character, and the ways her story and image have been politically exploited. Franklin reveals how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea, and opens up new avenues for interpreting her life and writing in today's hyperpolarized world.

Released from a concentration camp after the war, Aron Blank looks for and eventually finds the only other surviving member of his family, his son Mark, whom he was forced to abandon when Mark was only two years old. Working first in the black market and later as a Russian interpreter, Aron tries to rebuild a normal life for himself and his son in East Berlin. Decades later, with Mark lost in the Six-Day War, Aron tells his story to a young interviewer—the flow of his poignant narrative occasionally interrupted by their brief exchanges, which are peppered with humor. Written with the understated elegance that brought Becker worldwide acclaim for Jacob the Liar, this is a rare portrait of Jewish life in postwar Germany and a profoundly human story of survival, friendship, and fatherly love.

Door haar dagboek - het meest gelezen boek over de Tweede Wereldoorlog - werd Anne Frank (1929-1945) een begrip. Deze nieuwe biografie werpt een nieuw licht op haar leven én haar naleven. Ruth Franklin schetst een volledig beeld, vanaf Annes familiegeschiedenis tot wat na haar dood in Bergen-Belsen gebeurde. Vluchteling, onderduiker, tiener en schrijver die postuum de wereld veroverde: alle gedaantes van Anne worden in dit boek besproken. Ruth Franklin schrijft naast haar in plaats van over haar, en weet zo de Holocaust in Nederland en het ultieme lot van Anne nog scherper te schetsen. Ze laat zien hoe Annes imago door de jaren heen is belaagd, via politieke manipulaties en controversiële bewerkingen. Maar het wordt duidelijk dat Anne Franks verhaal, met de onderdrukking, de onmenselijkheid en toch de hoop, in de wereld van nu nog altijd van het grootste belang is. Ruth Franklin is auteur van de biografie Shirley Jackson. A Rather Haunted Life, waarmee ze de National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography won. Eerder schreef ze A Thousand Darknesses. Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction. Ze woont in Brooklyn. Over De vele levens van Anne Frank: 'Franklin heeft iets geweldigs gedaan. Ze verwijst voortdurend naar het echte meisje op een manier die fris en overtuigend aanvoelt. Haar aanpak geeft verve en structuur aan dit mooie boek.' The Wall Street Journal 'Dit briljante, zorgvuldig onderzochte en diepgaande portret van Anne Frank is meer dan een biografie: het is cultuurgeschiedenis, onderzoeksjournalistiek, literaire kritiek en, meest van al, een ontroerend, helder eerbetoon. Een triomf.' Heather Clark, auteur van Rode komeet. Het korte leven en de vlammende kunst van Sylvia Plath 'Met inlevingsvermogen en toegewijd onderzoek construeert Franklin een levendige culturele geschiedenis die pleit voor een nieuwe evaluatie van Frank, niet als symbool of als heilige, maar als mens en literair kunstenaar.' The New Yorker, 'Best Books We Read This Week' 'Helder en sterk verteld. Een van de beste beschrijvingen van de vele levens - en nalevens - van Anne Frank.' The Times Literary Supplement

Qui était W. G. Sebald? La précieuse transcription de cinq longs entretiens donnés aux Etats-Unis par le grand écrivain de langue allemande, jointe ici à trois essais traitant de son œuvre, invite ses lecteurs et admirateurs à se laisser surprendre. Entre les lignes, à travers des intonations et des traits d'humour auxquels on ne s'attendait pas, la grande passion de Sebald se révèle peu à peu - tout ce qui l'a fait souffrir, tout ce qui l'a imprégné au point qu'il ait offert sa vie à son art. Entre érudition et autodérision - il se livre ici davantage que dans ses œuvres -, Sebald parle de son rapport à l'Allemagne, à la littérature mondiale, à la culture juive... et de sa façon si singulière d'appréhender les manifestations et les subterfuges de la mémoire.

Here is a World War II story that hasn't been told Although celebrities visited the troops on occasion, there were hundreds of young professional performers who performed for GI's all over the globe under the auspices of USO Camp Shows, Inc. Classical Unit 508 - Music To Remember In the Southwest Pacific Area in the last months of the war. The five, the author, soprano, a baritone from Radio City Music Hall, a tenor from Fred Warings chorus, a WOR Radio violinist, and a Long Island, NY classical pianist were the young professionals whose 6-months spent entertaining GIs are recounted here with humor, honesty, and dedication to their cause.