Hitler’s French Literary Afterlives, 1945-2017

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. Hitler and the Second World War in French Historiography and Fiction

   • Manuel Bragança

   Pages 1-16

3. Hitler, in the Margins: On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Le Sursis (1945) and Jean Genet’s Pompes funèbres (1947)

   • Manuel Bragança

   Pages 17-38

4. What if Hitler Had Survived? On Pierre Boulle’s ‘Son Dernier Combat’ (1965) and René Fallet’s Ersatz (1974)

   • Manuel Bragança

   Pages 39-56

5. From Adolf to Hitler: On Frédéric Dard’s Le Dragon de Cracovie (1998) and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s La Part de l’autre (2001)

   • Manuel Bragança

   Pages 57-80

6. Adolf Before Hitler: On Christian Millau’s Le Passant de Vienne (2010) and Michel Folco’s La Jeunesse mélancolique et très désabusée d’Adolf Hitler (2010)

   • Manuel Bragança

   Pages 81-99

7. Hitler, from France to the Rest of the World (and Back): Concluding Remarks

   • Manuel Bragança

   Pages 101-123

8. Back Matter

   Pages 125-130

   PDF

This book analyses the successive appearances of Adolf Hitler in French fiction between 1945 and 2017. It discusses why, unlike what has been observed in the US and in the UK, it has proven problematic for French novelists to write about Hitler in their numerous fictional explorations of the Second World War. It examines the literary and ethical challenges of including historical characters such as Hitler in fiction, and demonstrates how these challenges evolved over time as memories of the Second World War also evolved in France. 

jhopok

• collective memory
• Second World War
• war narratives
• World War Two
• Third Reich

   “Essential reading for literary and cultural historians of the memory of World War II in France, Manu Braganca’s Hitler’s French Literary Afterlives offers a refreshingly original take on a subject that continues to fascinate and disturb. Braganca examines fictional portraits of Hitler by important French writers, many of whom are inadequately known outside of France. His analyses are insightful and well informed, his arguments incisive and his prose crisp. Hitler’s French Literary Afterlives opens new and exciting terrain in the ongoing exploration of the complex legacies of the Vichy Syndrome. Highly recommended.” (Richard J. Golsan, University Distinguished Professor and Distinguished Professor of French, Texas A&M University, USA)

• University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland

  Manuel Bragança

Manuel Bragança is Assistant Professor in French Studies at University College Dublin, Ireland, where he is also a member of the Centre for War Studies and of the Humanities Institute. His research interests focus on the historiography and memories of the Second World War in France and Europe.  

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