A01=Tamas Kisantal
Author_Tamas Kisantal
bystander effect in Hungary
Category=DS
Category=NHD
Category=NHTZ1
competitive memory
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
Holocaust memory in communist states
Humor and the Holocaust
Hungary
Jewish studies
memory studies
the myth of silence in East-Center Europe
Product details
- ISBN 9781501791062
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 Dec 2026
- Publisher: Cornell University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Literature of Absence explores the literary representations of wartime atrocities and the Holocaust in Hungary from 1945 to the late 1950s. In the immediate aftermath of World War II, survivor accounts, diverse in genre, perspective, and literary value, came to light as testimonies, novels and short stories, anthologies, and stage plays. These accounts appeared predominantly during the first three postwar years but diminished in frequency thereafter. The absence reinforced a preconception that still persists today, that there was a general silence about the Holocaust in postwar Hungary.
Tamás Kisantal resolves this absence with a critical examination of the first survivor testimonies, humor in early Holocaust writings, the notion of the "martyr writer," and the challenges of addressing and representing Hungarian responsibility—not only that of former politicians and leaders, but also that of ordinary people. Ultimately, Literature of Absence examines how the recent past was represented within the framework of anti-Fascist literature and how certain works attempted to transcend these generic and ideological constraints in order to articulate their own approach to the Hungarian Holocaust.
Tamás Kisantal is Associate Professor of literary theory and history at University of Pécs, Hungary and focuses on narrative aspects of historical writing, problems of the historical novel, and artistic representations of the Holocaust. He is the author of three books in Hungarian, including Túlélő történetek, Az élet tanítómesterei, and Az emlékezet és a felejtés helyei.
