On Jean Améry

This volume, a welcome addition to scholarship on Jean Améry, examines his work from various perspectives. The collection consists of essays analyzing Améry's œuvre from a philosophical, linguistic, and literary point of view. Scholars from Australia, the United States, Canada, Poland, Denmark, and Austria draw on a wide variety of theoretical frameworks, entering into a cross-disciplinary dialogue with each other, while employing the latest research findings to bring Améry's often forceful, provocative argumentation into focus. Whereas his essays have hitherto received attention in the German-speaking world, Zolkos' merit has been to assemble contributions in English about the œuvre of this survivor of Auschwitz. It is rewarding to see Améry's essayistic, journalistic and literary work, which continues to be relevant in today's world, finally granted the global attention it merits. -- Petra Fiero, Western Washington University, Bellingham
Jean Amèry, Austrian Jew, resistance fighter and Auschwitz survivor was one of the most perceptive and provocative commentators on resentment, human dignity, the loss of trust in the world, guilt, and the bodily moral significance of living through brutal torture. Until recently he has been barely known in the Anglo-American world. But it is becoming increasingly evident how relevant his exquisite thinking is to the tangled issues that continue to trouble and haunt us. This splendid collection of essays—the first of its kind in English—explores the depths and significance of his thinking for our own time. Anyone concerned with the intractable moral and political problems that still confront us will be stimulated by these thoughtful essays. -- Richard J. Bernstein, Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research
This noteworthy interdisciplinary and international anthology of essays addressing the works of Jean Améry bears eloquent witness to the continuing impact of Améry’s own impassioned, importunate voice. Not even Auschwitz could silence Améry, and this fine collection helps assure that the call to continuing resistance, and to the genuine liberation only such resistance can offer—the call that his works and his life, up to and including his own voluntary death, so consistently and insistently sounded—will continue to sound and resound today, and beyond, for all of our sakes. -- Frank Seeburger, University of Denver