Marcel Reich-Ranicki. La littérature, une vie. Judéité/germanisme

Abstract

Although Marcel Reich-Ranicki is relatively unknown in France, he is a famous figure in German culture. Born in 1920 to a Jewish Polish father and a Jewish German mother, Reich-Ranicki spent his childhood in Poland before finishing his studies in Berlin. It is there that he discovered his lifelong passion for German literature, a passion that saved his life by giving him hope.Reich-Ranicki was sent back to Poland due to increasingly strict racial laws but later managed to escape the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1958, he decided to return to the very country where Nazism was born, the country that was responsible for the murder of his loved ones. How did this man, who went on to become the most famous literary critic in Germany, reconcile his fear of Germans and his admiration for German culture? Reich-Ranicki spent his life reading and defending German literature up until his death in September 2013.