Cenotaph and Tumulus – Ethics and Memory. The Micronovel Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano and the Fiction of Herta Müller

Abstract

The present study approaches the micro-novel Dora Bruder by Patrick Modiano from the perspective of memory (and post-memory) which, through documentary work, restores the identity of the victims definitively annulled by the Nazi regime (victims who have no grave). Our hypothesis is that Modiano is building a literary cenotaph for Dora Bruder. For her part, Herta Müller tries, in at least two of her novels (The Land of Green Plums and The Appointment), to build for the victims of the Securitate (the Political Police in Communist Romania, during the neo-Stalinist regime under Nicolae Ceaușescu), a memorial, a literary tumulus. In this case, it is about victims who have a grave, but the author is building a second grave from an ethical point of view.

Keywords

• totalitarianism
• nazism
• patrick modiano
• dora bruder
• memory
• post-memory
• cenotaph
• communism
• herta müller
• memorial
• tumulus