Lost Time and the Heterotopic Image in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz

W.G. Sebald’s treatment of time, remembrance, and photography in Austerlitz recalls Marcel Proust’s theory of involuntary memory and Walter Benjamin’s philosophy of history yet lacks their redemptive thrust. This essay considers Austerlitz’s divergence from the theories of Proust and Benjamin, and employs Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia to elucidate the book’s irreconcilably fragmented depiction of time.