The interconnections between histories and memories of the Holocaust, colonialism and extreme violence in post-war French and Francophone fiction and film provide the central focus of this book. It proposes a new model of 'palimpsestic memory', which the author defines as the condensation of different spatio-temporal traces, to describe these interconnections and defines the poetics and the politics of this composite form. In doing so it is argued that a poetics dependent on tropes and techniques, such as metaphor, allegory and montage, establishes connections across space and time which...

..". a very impressive contribution to discussions of memory in relation to the Holocaust and colonialism in French and Francophone contexts. It is original, erudite, theoretically highly sophisticated and likely to be of immense value in developing debates in the field. It is also very well-written: eloquent and subtle in its expression of and contribution to the theoretical complexities of memory studies." - Ursula Tidd, University of Manchester

"In this timely book, Max Silverman deepens our understanding of the transcultural and transnational dynamics of memory. Lucidly written,...