Hitler’s French Literary Afterlives, 1945-2017

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. 

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Chapter 1: Hitler and the Second World War in French Historiography and Fiction.- Chapter 2: Hitler in the Margins. On Jean-Paul Sartre’s Le Sursis (1945) and Jean Genet’s Pompes funèbres (1947).- Chapter 3: What if Hitler had Survived? On Pierre Boulle’s ‘Son Dernier Combat’ (1965) and René Fallet’s Ersatz (1974).- Chapter 4: From Adolf to Hitler. On Frédéric Dard’s Le Dragon de Cracovie (1998) and Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt’s La Part de l’autre (2001).- Chapter 5 : 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).- Chapter 6: Hitler from France to the Rest of the World (and Back): Concluding Remarks. 

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.