Monday, March 31, 2014

Writing Terror

So for various reasons, I've recently been investigating what's been written about the European terrorism of the 1970s/1980s. One of the things which is striking is how the "terrorist memoir" seems to be a niche sub-genre these days. This year one of November 17 published Γεννήθηκα 17 Νοέμβρη, but there are a couple of efforts from Baader-Meinhoff and other German groups, and the occasional Red Brigader. Even Britain gets in on the act with Stuart Christie's Granny Made Me An Anarchist. What's curious is that even though right-wing terrorist groups were pretty prominent during the same period, they don't seem to be represented in the memoirs market, and I'm wondering why that is. Lack of the literary/intellectual tradition that the left has? Publishers less sympathetic? Something else?

1 comment:

TM said...

One thing I notice about the Italian right-wingers is that quite a few of them still maintain their innocence of specific crimes. So a memoir worth buying might be counter to their interests. But that doesn't explain the wider trend.
Something to do with the old saw about people wearing hammer & sickle T-shirts but not swastikas, I suppose.

Also, I found this on JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2tt8v9