William Styron - novel - 1974 - p. 74

A winner of the National Book Award and the subject of adaptation into a hugely successful film starring Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice revolves around a trio of individuals who live in a New York City boarding house: Stingo, an aspiring writer from the American South; Nathan, a Jewish-American scientist who (unbeknownst to others) has paranoid schizophrenia; and Sophie, a Polish Catholic who survived internment at Auschwitz.

The book draws inspiration from philosopher Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann and Jerusalem and The Origins of Totalitarianism. It has been banned and criticized for a range of issues, including its focus on a non-Jewish Holocaust survivor, revisionism, decontextualization, and the instrumentalization of the Holocaust.

Key elements: American South, Europe, fascism, infidelity, mental illness, suicide