A highly ambitious attempt by major scholars and writers to analyze how postwar West German and Japanese writers, principally novelists, dealt with the traumatic pasts of their respective countries. The responses, especially in Germany, changed over time. While the comparisons of the two cultures remain implicit in most instances, these essays confirm the basic premise of the conference that occasioned these papers: it is in fiction that we often find the deeper meaning of political and psychological realities. Readable, informative and suggestive.