"Kazdy czlowiek powinien wykonywac swoja prace z miloscia". Prowokacje Jonathana Littella

Jonathan Littell’s novel Les Bienveillantes was published in France in 2006, winning the Prix Goncourt and Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française. Its German and English translations appeared in 2008 and 2009, respectively. However, the literary recognition of this novel, as well as its commercial success, has been inseparable from its inflammatory, provocative effects. These were due, most obviously but not only, to the particular structure of representation in Les Bienveillantes, i.e. the perspective of a Nazi officer, a fictional figure of Max Aue, engaged in SS-Sonderkommando massacres in Poland, Ukraine and Caucasus. In addition, the provocative performance of Les Bienveillantes involved also the questioning of Littell’s legitimacy in dealing with the subject at hand. Particularly poignant in France and in Germany, the critique was articulated primarily in terms of Littell’s inadequacy as regards his national, linguistic and generational belonging. This chapter offers a reading of Les Bienveillantes and its provocative effects that positions its text within the theoretical literary junction of contemporary Holocaust writings and the theory of affect, memory and trauma.