Generation, Gender and Identity in German-Jewish Literature after 1989 by Daphne Maria Seemann (review)

• Published in: German studies review Vol. 44; no. 2; pp. 431 - 433
• Main Author: Hoyer, Jennifer M
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.05.2021
• Subjects: Authenticity; Authorship; Gender; Gender identity; Generations; Group identity; Historical fiction; Holocaust; Identity formation; Jewish literature; Literature; Narrative structure; Narratives; Self concept; Topic and comment; Writers
• ISSN: 0149-7952; 2164-8646; 2164-8646
• DOI: 10.1353/gsr.2021.0061

Focusing primarily on one to two texts each by Doron Rabinovici, Maxim Biller, Robert Menasse, Eva Menasse, and Barbara Honigmann, five well-known current Jewish authors writing in German, Seemann employs a number of different theoretical approaches to describe how the category of "generation" appears in the narratives as a driving force in both group and individual identity formation. The individual chapters, as well as the book as a whole, provide a sense of what to expect from a given author and a reliable overview of common as well as newer approaches to the topic of German Jewish writing of the second and third postwar generations. In the conclusion, Seemann writes: "In light of the diversity of narrative style, techniques, structure and thematic focus represented by the contemporary German Jewish authors discussed here, this study refrains from suggesting that there is a uniform body of contemporary German Jewish literature which displays a specific catalogue of characteristics and represents clear-cut, generalizable definitions of contemporary Jewish identity" (262).