The Omen of American Holocaust Literature

David Roskies and Naomi Diamant, in their book Holocaust Literature: A History and Guide (2012), when analyzing Holocaust literature as a literary genre, state that the first phase in the emergence of the genre was characterized by documenting the wartime in Nazi-occupied Europe. Little or no attention was given to the American literature of that time. The two authors analyze American literature only in the third phase of Holocaust literature – the provisional phase – when English became the main language in which Holocaust literature was written. This paper sets out to explore three American novels written between 1933 and 1945. These three novels are Satan in Goray (1933) by Isaac Bashevis Singer, Address Unknown (1938) by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor, and Focus (1945) by Arthur Miller. The goal of this paper is to show, by a thorough analysis of the themes and protagonists, that there were writings in American literature that tackled the topic of the Holocaust even before the mass extermination of Jews in Europe took place. The purpose of this paper is to analyze these three novels and their ominous quality to show how American literature influenced the further development of the literary genre today termed Holocaust literature.