On the Human Race: Essays and Commentary

Rescued in 1945 from Dachau - where he lay dying when Francois Mitterand, his onetime comrade in the resistance, recognized him among the thousands of quarantined prisoners - Robert Antelme set out to do what seemed
unimaginable,
to describe not only his experience but the humanity of his captors. The result, The Human Race, was called by George Perec
the finest example in contemporary French writing of what literature can be.
In this volume, the extraordinary nature and extent of Robert Antelme’s accomplishment, and of the reverberations he set in motion in French life and literature, finds eloquent expression. The pieces Antelme wrote for journals - including essays on
principles put to the test,
man as the
basis of right,
the question of revenge - appear here alongside appreciations of The Human Race by authors from George. Perec to Maurice Blanchot to Sarah Kofman; personal recollections of Antelme; and interviews with, among others, Dionys Mascolo (who brought Antelme back from Dachau), Marguerite Duras (Antelme’s wife, who tells of his return from Germany), Francois Mitterand, Edgar Morin, Maurice Nadeau, and Claude Roy. Throughout, these reflections, reminiscences, and testimonials pose once more, in subtle and suggestive variations, the question lifted to an unprecedented level of sobriety, simplicity, and openness by Robert Antelme: Who is
the Other ?