Learning to pray in the age of technique or “ways of thinking peace after Auschwitz”

Abstract

Learning to pray in the Age of Technique is the last volume of the tetralogy “The Kingdom”, by Gonçalo M. Tavares, which also comprises A man: Klaus Klump (2007), Jerusalem (2006) and Joseph Walser’s Machine (2010a) – consists of an excellent representation of the Evils’ Territory dissolution. In the present paper, we present a reading of the novel permeated by the historical documents of Shoah experience, written in the II War Annals, Benjamin’s thesis of the state of exception and the literature of witness. Besides, we evaluate how Tavares covers the barbarie, political violence and the biopolitics themes within the general tetralogy project, which is developed throughout the literary representation.