San Antonio College Library

Critical evaluation of ten foremost Hebrew authors.

"Critical writing on literature and the arts is burdened by the weight of the past. In this book, Amir Eshel suggests that this retrospective gaze has trapped us in a search for reason in the madness of the twentieth century's catastrophes at the expense of literature's prospective vision. Considering several key literary works, Eshel argues in Futurity that by grappling with watershed events of modernity, these works display a future-centric engagement...

Pts. I-II (p. 15-154) discuss the pre-Holocaust period, including the martyrdom during the Crusades and the pogroms of 1648, 1881-2 and 1905 - both literary works written at the time of occurrence and by modern Hebrew writers about these events. Pt. III (p. 155-269) is devoted to the response to the Holocaust in modern Hebrew literature.

Index. Bibliography: p. 351-361.