Women’s Writing in Contemporary France : New Writers, New Literatures in the 1990s

This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. The 1990s witnessed an explosion in women's writing in France, with a particularly exciting new generation of writer's coming to the fore, such as Christine Angot, Marie Darrieussecq and Regine Detambel. Other authors such as Paule Constant, Sylvie Germain, Marie Redonnet and Leila Sebbar, who had begun publishing in the 1980s, claimed their mainstream status in the 1990s with new texts. The book provides an up-to-date introduction to an analysis of new women's writing in contemporary France, including both new writers of the 1990s and their more established counter-parts. The editors'incisive introduction situates these authors and their texts at the centre of the current trends and issues concerning French literary production today, whilst fifteen original essays focus on individual writers. The volume includes specialist bibliographies on each writer, incorporating English translations, major interviews, and key critical studies. Quotations are given in both French and English throughout. An invaluable study resource, this book is written in a clear and accessible style and will be of interest to the general reader as well as to students of all levels, to teachers of a wide range of courses on French culture, and to specialist researchers of French and Francophone literature. Front matter Contents Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction Part I Rewriting the past Louise L. Lambrichs: trauma, dream and narrative Evermore or nevermore? Memory and identity in Marie Redonnet’s fiction of the 1990s The female vampire: Chantal Chawaf’s melancholic autofiction Lost and found: mother–daughter relations in Paule Constant’s fiction Puzzling out the fathers: Sibylle Lacan’s Un père: puzzle Part II Writing the dynamics of identity Anatomical writing: Blasons d’un corps masculin, L’Ecrivaillon and La Ligne âpre by Régine Detambel ‘On ne s’entendait plus et c’était parfait ainsi’ (They could no longer hear each other and it was just fine that way): misunderstandings in the novels of Agnès Desarthe Textual mirrors and uncertain reflections: gender and narrative in L’Hiver de beauté, Les Ports du silence and La Rage au bois dormant by Christiane Baroche The articulation of beur female identity in the works of Farida Belghoul, Ferrudja Kessas and Soraya Nini Saying the unsayable: identities in crisis in the early novels of Marie Darrieussecq Part III Transgressions and transformation Experiment and experience in the phototextual projects of Sophie Calle Christine Angot’s autofictions: literature and/or reality? ‘Il n’y a pas de troisième voie’ (There is no third way): Sylvie Germain and the generic problems of the Christian novel The subversion of the gaze: Shérazade and other women in the work of Leïla Sebbar Unnatural women and uncomfortable readers? Clotilde Escalle’s tales of transgression Conclusion Individual author bibliography General bibliography Index The 1990s witnessed a veritable explosion in women's writing in France, with a particularly exciting new generation of writers coming to the fore, names like Christine Angot, Marie Darrieussecq and Régine Detambel. Other authors such as Paule Constant, Sylvie Germain, Marie Redonnet and Leïla Sebbar, who had begun publishing in the 1980s, claimed their mainstream status in the 1990s with new texts. This book provides an up-to-date introduction to and analysis of new women's writing in contemporary France including both new writers of the 1990s and their more established counterparts. The editors' incisive introduction situates these authors and their texts at the centre of the current trends and issues concerning French literary production today, whilst fifteen original essays focus on individual writers. The volume includes specialist bibliographies on each writer, incorporating English translations, major interviews, and key critical studies. Quotations are given in both French and English throughout. An invaluable study resource, its clear and accessible style makes this book of interest to the general reader as well as to students of all levels, to teachers of a wide range of courses on French culture, and to specialist researchers of French and Francophone literature.