“Je suis partout”: Stalingrad, Berlin, and other haunted places in “Les Bienveillantes”

Abstract

The essay offers a study on the representation of space in Les Bienveillantes (2006) by Jonathan Littell. From a methodological standpoint, the article benefits from the theoretical tools developed by Trauma Studies, along with Littell’s analysis on the ‘fascist’ language carried out in his essay Le Sec et L’Humide. The work aims at showing the intimate relationship between Maximilien Aue and the external environment, whose description follows the collapse of the narrator’s mind.