“Negroid Jews Against White Men”
“Negroid Jews Against White Men”
Louis-Ferdinand Céline and the Politics of Literature
This chapter analyzes the works of novelist Louis–Ferdinand Céline. Céline is a celebrated icon of the French literary canon. He published two anti-Semitic pamphlets—Bagatelles pour un massacre and L'école des cadavers—which led to his association with far-right pundits who had railed against the Popular Front, parliamentary democracy, and the decadence of modernity. While he never joined any political parties, his unabashed racist anti-Semitism, collaborationist activities, and self-proclaimed disgust with the French nation led to his inclusion at the end of the Vichy regime on the list of writers who had collaborated and must be “purged.” By then, though, Céline had fled France. When he returned in 1951, he resumed publishing novels—D'un château l'autre (1957), Nord (1960), and Guignols' Band II (1964), among others—that have since come to be considered among the greatest he ever wrote.
Keywords: Louis–Ferdinand Céline, novelist, far-right, anti-Semitism, French nation, novels, pamplets
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