This key collection of feminist writing includes essays, works of fiction, lectures and drama, all arranged chronologically. Spanning twenty years, it demonstrates the development of one of the great creative minds of the 20ieth century.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"Written by leading scholars in the field, this collection analyses the notion of travel writing as a genre, while tracing significant examples of Mediterranean travel writing that return us to Ancient Greece, to Medieval pilgrimages, to Venetians diplomatic missions, to an Egyptian's account of Paris in the nineteenth century, to French artistic journeys in North Africa and to contemporary narratives of privileged resettlement, death and dislocation."

This book is a clear and accessible introduction to the writings of Helene Cixous, novelist, dramatist and critic, whose work has had a major impact on feminist theory and practice. Susan Sellers, a major scholar on Cixous, provides a lucid account of Cixous's theoretical position, and in particular her distinctive theory of an 'écriture féminine'. She discusses the development of Cixous's literary oeuvre in the context of this theory, and analyses a selection of the works in detail to illustrate the different stages in Cixous's writing career. Focusing on the key novels and plays, Sellers explores a range of issues and themes central to her work; the correlation between the death of Cixous's own father and her 'coming-into-being' as a writer; the psychological process of separation and individuation and the creation of a female authorial self; the discovery of the other and the dramatization of love; the delineation/depiction of an alternative form of relationship between self and other which would have a significance in a wider sphere than that of the merely personal. This much-needed book will be welcomed by students in literature and literary theory, feminism and women's studies, English and French studies and philosophy.

Through the ages, the pursuit of Happiness has been at the heart of the needs and desires each individual would seek to fulfill, while as a concept, Happiness has always resonated strongly in poetic as well as philosophical, sociological and psychological contexts. But what about Happiness today, in a world dominated by technology, driven by productivity and dictated by efficiency? Does Happiness still feature in contemporary fiction in any significant way? Or has it perhaps gone underground, adopting different guises? Would we still call that “duty of happiness” that Pascal Bruckner saw as “present at the second half of the twentieth century” a relevant force today? Or has it waned perceptibly? The articles brought together in this volume seek to work out answers to these and similar questions, creatively addressing the imminent risks but also eagerly following up the intriguing possibilities one encounters when interrogating Happiness in the contemporary novel. Originally based on an international conference organized at the University of Haifa, Israel, in May 2010, the volume is structured around the axes we found useful as a basis for the various approaches towards Happiness in Europe and the historical and social events that influenced the writing of Happiness as they defined the 20th century and have impacted on the 21st: the Holocaust, the Soviet dystopia, consumerism, postmodernism, “everyday life,” the various as yet unarticulated new modes of life they have given rise to, and so on. A new writing of happiness then? At the very least this volume targets the contemporary novel without wanting to solidify works, instead taking into account the fluctuations Happiness has been subjected to, and the diversity and especially the paradoxes it has created, while we have been keen to preserve a “precise” reading of the texts and have felt compelled to respect and preserve the particular features that make the writings of the authors we focus on stand out. Thème philosophique aussi bien que poétique, sociologique et psychologique, le bonheur s’édifie à la mesure de chacun. « N’est-il pas vrai que, nous autres hommes, nous désirons tous être heureux ? » (Platon). Or dans notre monde actuel dominé par la technique, la recherche à outrance du productif et de l’efficacité, qu’en est-il du bonheur ? Est-il encore présent aux écritures romanesques contemporaines ? Sous quelles formes se présenterait sa recherche ? Ce « devoir de bonheur propre à la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle » dont parle Pascal Bruckner, continue-t-il toujours à être d’actualité ? S’est-il renforcé ou, au contraire, s’est-il affaibli? Le projet d’un questionnement du bonheur dans le roman contemporain comportait de gros risques, mais il offrait en même temps des possibilités stimulantes. A la suite du colloque international organisé à l’université de Haïfa en mai 2010, les textes réunis dans ce livre, cherchent à élaborer des éléments de réponse à ces questions. Le volume offre un état des lieux du bonheur dans le roman depuis 1980 et présente une large diversité d’approches, de définitions, d’interrogations sur l’écriture du bonheur sur trois décennies. Le recueil s’articule autour d’axes qui ont servi de base aux différentes approches du bonheur en Europe et d’événements historiques et sociaux qui ont pu influencer l’écriture du bonheur aux différentes périodes du XXe et XXe siècles, telles que l’Holocauste, la dystopie en Russie, le postmodernisme et le consumérisme, le quotidien, les différents paradoxes du bonheur, les nouveaux modes de vie. Nouvelle écriture du bonheur? Du moins, ce volume vise-t-il le contemporain sans figer les œuvres, tout en tenant compte des fluctuations du sujet, de sa diversité, de ses paradoxes surtout, tout en conservant la lecture précise des textes et en respectant la particularité de l’écriture des auteurs traités.

Afropean Female Selves: Migration and Language in the Life Writing of Fatou Diome and Igiaba Scego examines the corpus of writing of two contemporary female authors. Both writers are of African descent, live in Europe and write about lives across Europe and Africa in different languages (French and Italian). Their work involves episodes from their lived experience and complicates Western understandings of life writing and autobiography. As Hogarth shows in this study, the works of Diome and Scego encapsulate the new and complex identities of contemporary "Afropeans." As an identity coined and used frequently by prominent authors and critics across Europe, Africa and North America, the notion of "Afropean" is at the cutting edge of cultural analyses today. Yet each writer occupies unique and different positions within this debated category. While Scego is a "post-migratory subject" in postcolonial Europe, Diome is an African writer who has migrated to Europe in her adult life. This book examines the different trajectories and packaging of these two specific postcolonial writers in the Francophone and Italophone contexts, pointing out how and where each author practices life writing strategies and scrutinizing the trend that emphasizes the life writing, autofictional, or autoethnographic strategies of African diasporic writers. Afropean Female Selves offers a comparative study across two languages of a notion that has so far been explored mainly in English. It explores the contours of this new discursive category and positions it in regard to other notions of Afrodiasporic identity, such as Afropolitan and Afro-European.