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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. ■



arts & culture
An Asian-Jewish Superhero
Fights the 1970s Chinese Mob
in Comic Book Debut
Julian Voloj | JTA.org
A n independent comic book
publisher that aims to promote
diversity in comics is about to
spotlight a historic new character: the
Asian-Jewish Leah Ai Tian, aka “The
Last Jewish Daughter of Kaifeng.”
The character is the brainchild of
Fabrice Sapolsky, co-founder of the
Queens, New York-based FairSquare
Comics, which aims to “promote and
give more exposure to immigrants,
minorities and under-represented
creators of the word.” “The Last Jewish
Daughter of Kaifeng,” which debuts
June 7, is the latest installation of the
Intertwined series of comics, which
Sapolsky and fellow Frenchman Fred
Pham Chuong started in 2017.

Leah, who made a brief appearance
in the first Intertwined book, has the
ability to manipulate anything water-
based and travel through streams —
not unlike a certain character in the
popular TV show “Avatar: The Last
Airbender.” The book tells her complex origin
story, which Sapolsky said is meant to
“explain the reality of being a minority
in a country that does not accept you
as a minority.”
At first, Leah lives freely as a Jew in
1970s New York City — she wears a
chai necklace, has opened a kosher
Chinese restaurant and says her rabbi
calls her powers “a blessing” from God.

But the reader learns that she had left
China to avoid a forced marriage to a
mob lord who now terrorizes Kaifeng
— a large city in eastern China home
to the remnants of the country’s only
native Jewish community.

That community, once thought to
be at least a few thousand strong, by
the time of Leah’s story was thought
to be mostly dispersed or assimilated
Leah Ai Tian is the hero of “The Last Jewish Daughter of Kaifeng.”
“When working on the original concept of Intertwined,
I knew we had to have a Jewish character, and there
had never been an Asian-Jewish character in comics”
into the non-religious society of the
Cultural Revolution. Leah returns home
to try to save her parents and bring
them to New York, where they could
practice their religion freely.

Sapolsky’s interest in the Jewish
community in Kaifeng dates to the
1990s when he was a teenager and his
Jewish camp in France one year held
“Kaifeng-themed” activities, meant to
educate campers about Chinese Jews.

Born in France to a Sephardic
mother from Algeria and an Ashkenazi
father with roots in today’s Ukraine, his
background informed his interest in
Jewish diversity.

“When working on the original
concept of Intertwined, I knew we
had to have a Jewish character, and
there had never been an Asian-Jewish
character in comics,” Sapolsky said.

For Sapolsky, it was important
to make Leah’s story “real, make it
authentic, make it believable.” He
talked to consultants about Kaifeng
history and culture, making sure even
the architecture depicted on the page
was realistic.

“The two artists, Fei Chen and Ho
Seng Hui, are from China and Malaysia,
and never thought about Jews before
this project, so they learned while
drawing the book,” he said. Will Torres,
a Christian of Puerto Rican descent,
helped with the inking, and the coloring
was done by Argentine Exequiel Roel.

The goal of the story was not only to
refer to the minority experience in China
— but also to the realities in the United
States, Sapolsky’s adopted home.

“Unlike in France, where Jews are
clearly defined as a minority, in this
country they are widely perceived as
simply white, which denies the diver-
sity of Judaism,” he said. ■
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