The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of World War II

by Marina MacKay (Editor)

Overview

The literature of World War II has emerged as an accomplished, moving, and challenging body of work, produced by writers as different as Norman Mailer and Virginia Woolf, Primo Levi and Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and W. H. Auden. This Companion provides a comprehensive overview of the international literatures of the war: both those works that recorded or reflected experiences of the war as it happened, and those that tried to make sense of it afterwards. It surveys the writing produced in the major combatant nations (Britain and the Commonwealth, the USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, and the USSR), and explores its common themes. With its chronology and guide to further reading, it will be an invaluable source of information and inspiration for students and scholars of modern literature and war studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521887557
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/22/2009
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Literature
Pages:	258
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Marina MacKay is Assistant Professor of English at Washington University, St Louis.

Table of Contents

Chronology; Introduction Marina MacKay; Part I. Anglo-American Texts and Contexts: 1. War poetry in Britain Adam Piette; 2. British fiction of the war Rod Mengham; 3. War poetry in the USA Margot Norris; 4. The American war novel James Dawes; 5. War journalism in English Leo Mellor; Part II. Global Perspectives: 6. The French war Debarati Sanyal; 7. The German war Dagmar Barnouw; 8. The Soviet war Katharine Hodgson; 9. The Italian war Robert S. C. Gordon; 10. The Japanese war Reiko Tachibana; 11. War writing in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand Donna Coates; Part III. Approaches and Revisions: 12. Women writers and the war Gill Plain; 13. Life writing and the Holocaust Phyllis Lassner; 14. Theories of trauma Lyndsey Stonebridge; 15. The war in contemporary fiction Petra Rau; Guide to further reading; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'This [is] a welcome book, which covers new and valuable ground. I doubt whether there is a comparable guide to such a vital and wide-ranging subject that performs its function so efficiently. … ' Reference Reviews

'Marina MacKay's edited collection The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of World War II offers a useful overview of global writings on that war. The slim volume features succinct articles on the prose and poetry of the most important warring nations.' English Studies

From the Publisher