This book is acclaimed German novelist Sebald's investigation of one of the least examined "silences" of our time. He examines the devastation of German cities by Allied bombardment, and the reasons for the astonishing absence of this unprecedented trauma from German history and culture. This void is in part a repression of things--such as the death by fire of the city of Hamburg at the hands of the RAF--too terrible to bear. For Sebald, this is an example of deliberate cultural amnesia; his analysis of its effects in and outside Germany has already provoked angry and painful debate. It addresses questions that arise when communities must heal from self-inflicted wounds. This book is a study of suffering and forgetting, of the morality hidden in artistic decisions, and of both compromised and genuine heroics.--From publisher description.