SEBALD, W.G. [trans. Anthea Bell]. On the Natural History of Destruction.

SEBALD, W.G. [trans. Anthea Bell]. On the Natural History of Destruction. London: Hamish Hamilton. 2003.

8vo. Original black cloth with gilt lettering and publisher's device to spine, illustrated grey and blue dust wrapper, blue endpapers; pp. x, 205, [1]; fine copy.

First UK edition.

The first of Sebald’s non-fiction books to be translated to English, the original German title of On the Natural History of Destruction was Luftkrieg und Literatur, translating as “Air War and Literature”. The book consists of a variety of essays about literature and writers, a conduit through which Sebald analyses the German processing of WWII. Sebald examines the psychological aftermath of the bombings by Allied forces and raises the pertinent question of why such trauma has been left absent from the collective memory in what he describes as a sinister societal amnesia.

SKU: 2120468