A wide range of French women writers are surveyed, including Sand, Colette, Beauvoir and Duras among the "canonized", and many marginalized or forgotten and contemporary names not yet widely known outside France. These writers are seen within the political, economic and cultural context of women's lives and how these have changed across a century-and-a-half. Underpinning the whole account is the relationship between gender and language, between politics sexual and textual.

This volume was the first historical introduction to women's writing in France from the sixth century to the present day. Specially-commissioned essays by leading scholars provide an introduction in English to the wealth and diversity of French women writers, offering fascinating readings and perspectives. The volume as a whole offers a cohesive history of women's writing which has sometimes been obscured by the canonisation of a small feminine elite. Each chapter focuses on a given period and a range of writers, taking account of prevailing sexual ideologies and women's activities in, or their relation to, the social, political, economic and cultural surroundings. Complemented by an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary works and a biographical guide to more than one hundred and fifty women writers, it represents an invaluable resource for those wishing to discover or extend their knowledge of French literature written by women.

This is the most complete critical survey to date of women's literature in nineteenth-century France. Alison Finch's wide-ranging analysis of some 60 writers reflects the rich diversity of a century that begins with Mme de Staël's cosmopolitanism and ends with Rachilde's perverse eroticism. Finch's study brings out the contribution not only of major figures like George Sand but also of many other talented and important writers who have been unjustly rejected, including Flora Tristan, Claire de Duras and Delphine de Girardin. Her account opens new perspectives on the interchange between male and female authors and on women's literary traditions during the period. She discusses popular and serious writing: fiction, verse, drama, memoirs, journalism, feminist polemic, historiography, travelogues, children's tales, religious and political thought - often brave, innovative texts linked to women's social and legal status in an oppressive society. Extensive reference features include bibliographical guides to texts and writers.

In the 1990s the French literary arena was enlivened by the emergence of a new generation of women writers. This book selects six of its most distinctive voices and addresses important questions about the very new in French women's writing. What are young women choosing to write about? What do they tell us about changing perceptions of feminine identities? What does it mean to write (and to read) as women at the start of the new millennium? An introductory chapter explores key issues such as the woman writer in the public imagination and continuity and change within French women's writing since the 1970s. It also highlights thematic threads which recur across the work of the authors studied: history and time, wandering and exile, self and other, the body and sexuality and writing and telling. The remaining chapters propose productive approaches to the fictional worlds of Marie Darrieussecq, Virginie Despentes, Marie Ndiaye, Agnès Desarthe, Lorette Nobécourt and Amélie Nothomb through close readings of their most challenging, popular or telling texts. They focus on perennial preoccupations in women's writing which are given new treatment by these writers and discuss important developments such as uses of the pornographic, myth and fairy tale and parody and irony in new women's writing.

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.

This volume presents an overview of major cultural themes in contemporary France. The section on politics deals with the issue of political cohabitation, the evolution of the Communist Party, the environment, social systems and the European Union. In the social arena, the articles encompass the evolution of the family, benefits for the elderly, the education system, and the social implications of graffiti. The changing nature of French identity is brought to light through an analysis of the press and the debate on multiculturalism. A review of cultural issues includes the notion of leisure, the contemporary social novel, the cosmopolitan tradition in French film, and new cultural spaces.The work concludes with perceptions of France from the United States as seen through diplomatic relations and remakes of french films, and a final essay on France. The various articles include numerous bibliographic references and will be of great interest to Francophiles, academics, and students of French language and culture.

This book reviews the current state of feminist thinking in the run-up to the millenium, its priorities and concerns; drawing critical attention to the losses as well as the gains of contemporary feminist work.