Reading Contemporary French Literature

Abstract

This book focuses upon a dozen French writers who have helped to set the terms for contemporary French literature and its horizon of possibility. Though they have pursued significantly different paths, each one of them is committed to the principle of literary innovation, to making French literature new. They work in full cognizance of literary history and of the tradition that they inherit, even as they reshape that tradition in each of their books. They invite their readers to take a critical stance with regard to those books, and to participate actively in the construction of literary meaning. Both bold and mobile in their own practice, they encourage us to be just as agile in our own readerly practice, offering us a rare degree of franchise in a literary dynamic founded on the notion of articulation. Writers discussed include Raymond Queneau, Edmond Jabès, Georges Perec, Marcel Bénabou, Jacques Jouet, Marie NDiaye, Marie Cosnay, Bernard Noël, Jean Rolin, Jacques Serena, Julia Deck, and Christine Montalbetti.