[In the following review, Rosenfeld commends Sebald's insightful analysis in Unheimliche Heimat.]

The subtitle of W. G. Sebald's book Unheimliche Heimat posits a distinct identity for Austrian—as opposed to German—literature, and in the nine essays collected here Sebald finds a variety of instructive approaches to this long-debated and ultimately unresolvable question. Certainly, writers such as Jean Améry, Hermann Broch, Peter Handke, Franz Kafka, and Joseph Roth have found their place within the greater corpus of German-language writing. But whether Sebald is dealing in his separate interpretations with them, or with Karl Postl, Leopold Kompert, Karl Emil Franzos, Peter Altenberg, or Gerhard Roth, his focus on the specifically Austrian social determinants of their alienation from their “unheimliche Heimat” yields fruitful results. That seven of the ten writers he treats were Jews (or of Jewish background) is intrinsic to the theme, for no other group within the monarchy and later republic was more closely bound to the ideal of “Heimat” in its particular Austrian expression; and, as Sebald shows, these writers responded to their life situations as Austrians with an unusually probing mixture of ardent loyalty and criticism.

The author, a Germanist at the University of East Anglia, writes deftly and with clear inner involvement, all the while maintaining a salutary critical attitude toward the writers under view. At times I found myself disturbed by eight-line sentences and what seems a rather conscious indulgence in Austrianisms, but these reservations are more than offset by the sparkling insights and reading pleasure that Sebald provides at his impressive best. A book such as this will find its natural readership among teachers and advanced students of Austrian literature. Both to them and to the academic libraries that serve them, I recommend it most warmly. The serious lay reader as well will find more than enough new discovery and inspiration in Sebald's essays to warrant them a place on his or her bookshelf.