Figures of Youth
Metaphor and Imagination in Children's Holocaust Literature
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:1st Oct '26
£95.00
Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.
Examines metaphor in Holocaust literature for young people, demonstrating the importance of figurative dynamics in the representation of genocide.
Joanna Krongold explores how Holocaust literature for children and young adults imagines, narrates, communicates, and alters the facts of war, genocide, and trauma.
Figures of Youth analyzes the literary strategies and stylistic tools that are used when attempting to represent the atrocity and enormity of the Holocaust for children. Joanna Krongold explores figurative dynamics - tellings and retellings of the Holocaust that rely on metaphor and imagination rather than strictly literal techniques.
Spanning chronological time periods, cultures, and genres, this book charts patterns of representation as time propels authors farther away from the event itself, demonstrating how and why children's literature makes important contributions to the field of Holocaust studies. By placing well-known texts like Anne Frank’s diary in conversation with those that have been excluded or ignored in scholarly discourse surrounding Holocaust literature, the author offers a new and innovative understanding of metaphor and figurative dynamics in the representation of genocide.
Joanna Krongold’s Figures of Youth is an important and timely study that introduces a growing and significant genre of Holocaust representation that has, to date, received little scholarly attention. Krongold’s astute and deeply compelling analyses of individual works by and about children and young adults during and in response to the Holocaust demonstrates the full and rich force of literary and artistic expression. As Krongold demonstrates, the range of stylistic and imaginative approaches give dramatic shape to the enormity of the Holocaust and its extended aftermath. * Victoria Aarons, Distinguished Professor of Literature, Trinity University, USA *
This groundbreaking study addresses the special artistic and ethical difficulties of representing the Holocaust in literature for young people. Through inspired readings of works ranging from Anne Frank’s Diary to the Harry Potter series, Joanna Krongold foregrounds the tension between metaphorical and factual strategies, offering a new approach that will be vital to future readings of all Holocaust literature. * Sue Vice, Professor Emeritus of English Literature, University of Sheffield, UK *
ISBN: 9781666951110
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
320 pages