Voicing the void

Discusses Holocaust fiction, distinguishing between invention and artistry, which is defined as a "novelistic structure" used to relate facts. Explores the functions of the "trope of mute witness", using Semprún's novel "The Long Voyage", in which the narrator discovers that those who did not experience the concentration camps themselves cannot fathom the "unreal reality" of them. Jerzy Kosinski, Charlotte Delbo, Piotr Rawicz, and Primo Levi use muteness - fictional characters who stop speaking through will or compulsion - in their search for a "credible, authentic voice". For Elie Wiesel, muteness represents both human and divine silence. States that writers in the ghettos struggled against silencing forces, but survivors tend to distrust language in their memoirs. Examines works by Jakov Lind, André Schwarz-Bart, and George Steiner, which study the contribution of language used by the Nazis to the verbal evasiveness of bystanders and collaborators. Discusses works by Ida Fink, which explore the functions and limitations of memory and narrative within the context of testimonial fiction. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)