Description: An innovative philosophical meditation on the muteness of Holocaust survivors and the human faculty of storytelling.
Brief description: Rodolphe Gasché is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Eugenio Donato Professor of Comparative Literature at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His many books include Storytelling: The Destruction of the Inalienable in the Age of the Holocaust, also published by SUNY Press.
Review Quotes:
"This book pursues the problem of what happens when the stories that are the object of narration become so enigmatic and troublesome that they withdraw from the realm of communicability and meaning into the space of a certain muteness. By focusing on Schapp, Benjamin, and Arendt, Gasché succeeds brilliantly in weaving together the three strands that are most vital to its subject: philosophical rigor, literary sensitivity, and historical concreteness." - Gerhard Richter, author of Inheriting Walter Benjamin