arts & culture
bonus digital content
As Author Martin Amis Died, a Movie
of His Holocaust Novel ‘Zone
of Interest’ Wowed at Cannes
Andrew Lapin | JTA.org
Maximilian Schönherr via Creative Commons via JTA.org
T he death of Martin Amis, the prolific British
author, came just as a film adaptation of one
of his Holocaust novels premiered to rave
reviews at the Cannes Film Festival.

Amis, who died on May 19 of esophageal cancer
at the age of 73, was not primarily known for his
Holocaust fiction. But that aspect of his career
may soon loom large, as “The Zone of Interest,” an
adaptation of his penultimate novel, has become an
early favorite to win this year’s Palme d’Or, the top
prize at Cannes.

If the film comes away from the festival with an
award, it could serve as an honor of sorts at the end of
a largely celebrated but at times controversial career.

In addition to his writing, Amis was known for his
tabloid-fodder romances and derogatory comments
about Muslims. The son of British literary titan Kingsley
Amis, his most well-regarded work included the
so-called London Trilogy of novels, published in the
1980s and 1990s, and a 2000 memoir.

Published in 2014, “The Zone of Interest” was
Amis’ second-to-last novel and concerned itself,
as many of his works did, with the mechanisms of
genocide and the dark theme of societal collapse.

The book centers around a figure loosely inspired
by Auschwitz death camp commandant Rudolph
Hoess. It dissects the mentality of Nazi officers and
their families as they attempt to construct compart-
mentalized personal lives while committing atrocities
against Jews. Amis’ novel also includes the perspec-
tive of a Jewish sonderkommando — a concentration
camp prisoner who disposed of the dead bodies of
fellow Jews after they had been gassed.

In the movie version, directed by the acclaimed
British Jewish filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, the protag-
onist is explicitly Hoess himself. Glazer told reporters
that he hoped the film adaptation would “talk to the
capacity within each of us for violence, wherever
you’re from.” It was important, he said, to depict
Nazis not as “monsters,” but rather to show that “the
great crime and tragedy is that human beings did
this to other human beings.” The movie was filmed
in Auschwitz and is scheduled to be released later
this year.

“The Zone of Interest” was Amis’ second novel
24 MAY 25, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
The English author Martin Amis in a hotel suite in Cologne, Germany, on March 17, 2012
about the Holocaust. In 1991, he published “Time’s
Arrow: or The Nature of the Offense,” an experimen-
tal narrative about a Nazi doctor in Auschwitz. Told
in reverse chronology, the novel begins with the
doctor’s “retirement” in America, before rewinding
to show him brutalizing people in the camps. Critics
celebrated the book for its depiction of the absurdity
underpinning the Holocaust.

Amis was known more broadly for his mixture of
satirical novels and fierce polemics, and he took on
everything from the Stalinist regime to modern-day
feminism to Islam in the post-9/11 world. That last
topic earned him particular condemnation in 2006
when he asserted, among other things, “The Muslim
community will have to suffer until it gets its house in
order.” He apologized for that comment and denied
being an Islamophobe, though soon afterward,
according to The New York Times, he identified as
an “anti-Islamist” and told the British newspaper The
Independent: “Anti-Islamism is not like antisemitism.

There is a reason for it.”
If “The Zone of Interest” wins the top prize at
Cannes, it will come amid a wave of other premieres
at the festival this year that also grapple with histor-
ical antisemitism. “Occupied City,” a new four-hour
documentary from Oscar-winning director Steve
McQueen, juxtaposes modern-day Amsterdam with
descriptions of its citizens’ lives under Nazi occupa-
tion. “The Goldman Case,” a courtroom drama, is
based on the real-life 1975 trial of left-wing French
Jewish radical Pierre Goldman, who claimed he
was a victim of antisemitic targeting by police and
who was later murdered. “Kidnapped,” which will
premiere on May 31, is an Italian historical drama
about the Catholic Church’s 19th-century kidnapping
of Jewish child Edgardo Mortara. ■