Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting provides the first comprehensive analysis of the fictional prose narratives of one of contemporary Germanys most recognized authors, the migr writer W. G. Sebald. Examining Sebalds well-known published texts in the context of largely unknown unpublished works, and informed by documents and information from Sebalds literary estate, this book offers a detailed portrait of his characteristic literary techniques and how they emerged and matured out of the practices and attitudes he represented in his profession as a literary scholar. The title Ghostwriting signals the convergence in Sebalds works of a set of diverse historical questions, philosophical views, and literary practices. Many historical ghosts haunt Sebalds narratives on the level of story. Moreover, Sebalds narrator plays the role of a ghostwriter in the profound sense that his stories fictionally re-enact the histories of obscure, but once-living individuals whose lives they revitalize, and whose fates are tied up with the most virulent historical conjunctures of the modern world. This study thus seeks to comprehend the constitutive elements of Sebalds poetics of history, his implementation of literary tools for effective historical memorializing.