A Thousand Darknesses

There are strong and conflicting viewpoints when it comes to recounting the Holocaust in fiction, and Franklin (senior editor, New Republic) does an excellent job of presenting all sides of the issue. Many believe that writing fictional literature or poetry about this event if it wasn't experienced firsthand is akin to blasphemy. Alternatively, a second school of thought posits that silence could be worse, and that accurately rendered literary versions might better engage readers, potentially assisting them in comprehending an otherwise incomprehensible event. Indeed, even within the most famous of memoirs, accounts have been substantially edited or updated, which additionally brings into question how much creative license the autobiographers themselves should have. In her reasoned discussion of this charged topic, Franklin covers many important writers of both fact (e.g., Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi) and fiction (e.g., W.G. Sebald, Jerzy Kosinski). Another aspect she introduces is the right (or duty) of second and even third generations—of which Franklin is one—to assume the legacy of communicating their ancestors' experiences.