French Fiction In The Mitterrand Years

In the 1980s and 1990s French Fiction has emerged from the towering shadow of the formalist literary debates of the fifties and sixties and has reclaimed the ground of history, or narrative, of the individual self which has been the thrust of artistic endeavour for much of European history.The Author has returned from the dead to entertain and tell stories, as well as to negotiate a path through traumatic experiences such as the legacy of Frances colonial and wartime past, the Holocaust, the spectre of Aids, the labyrinths of desire and personal identity. Colin Davis and ElizabethFallaize examine some of the most popular and some of the most challenging of texts which emerged during Francois Mitterrand's presidency of France (1981-1995) and relate them to the dominant literary and cultural trends of the period. The book will appeal to students at all levels who are engaged in courses in twentieth-century fiction and to readers with an interest in contemporary French culture.

The authors examine some of the most popular and some of the most challenging of texts that emerged during Francois Mitterrand's presidency. They relate these texts to the dominant literary and cultural trends of the period.

In this closely analytical study, Cruickshank reads the work of four influential writers of prose fiction - Angot, Echenoz, Houellebecq, and Redonnet - in the context of the turn of the millennium in France, which coincided with a number of tangible crises and apocalyptic discourses, and with the growth of the mass media and global market.

Explores the state of French fiction through an examination of the work of five major French writers, Annie Ernaux, Pascal Quignard, Marie Darrieussecq, Jean Echenoz and Patrick Modiano. This book deals with some of the writers on British and American university French courses.

This book takes a considered look at the Mitterrand presidency as a whole, its place in French history, and the trends for the twentyfirst century emerging under Chirac. Intended as a "landmark" to commemorate the passing of an era, the book also provides a summation of the France Mitterrand leaves behind and the trends emerging as the new millennium beckons.

This book is the first to offer a cultural history of French literature from its very beginnings, analysing the relationship between French literature and France’s evolving power structures from the Middle Ages through to the present day. It shows the political connections between the elite literature of France and other aspects of its culture, from racism, misogyny, tolerance and liberal reform to song, street performance, advertising and cinema. The nation’s literature contributed to these and was shaped by them. The book highlights the continuities and the unique fault-lines in the society that, over a millennium, has produced ‘French culture’. It looks at France’s early and continuing struggle for a national identity through both its language and its literature, and it shows that this struggle co-exists with openness to other cultures and a bawdy or subtle rebelliousness against the Church and other forms of authority. En route it takes in cuisine, gardens and the French tradition in mathematics. The survey provides an accessible approach to key issues in the history of French culture as well as a wide context for specialists.

All the novelists studied were published initially in popular collections, such as the Serie noire, but they have been chosen for the innovation of their work and the exciting ways in which they resist tired conventions and offer new ways of representing social reality." "One of the first English-language studies of this popular genre, The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture offers much more than close readings of these fascinating texts; it demonstrates the important contribution of the roman noir to the cultural histories of post-war France."--Jacket.

Crime fiction is a popular target for literary pastiche in France. From the nouveau roman and the Oulipo group to the current avant-garde, writers have seized on the genre to exploit it for their own ends, toying with its traditional plots and characters, and exploring its preoccupations with perception, reason and truth. In the first full-length study of the phenomenon, Simon Kemp's investigation centres on four major writers of the twentieth century, Alain Robbe-Grillet (b. 1922), Michel Butor (b. 1926), Georges Perec (193682) and Jean Echenoz (b. 1947). Out of their varied encounters with the genre, from deconstruction of the classic detective story to homage to the roman noir, Kemp elucidates the complex relationship between the pasticheur and his target, which demands an entirely new assessment of pastiche as a literary form.