Women's Writing in Contemporary France. New Writers, New Literatures in the 1990s ed. by Gill Rye, and Michael Worton (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews1 3 1 d'une "parole naissante". Pour Bucher, la femme y est représentée comme étant hors de soi sans être fondue en l'autre : c'est-à-dire, en somme, authentiquement ouverte à l'altérité. Aurélia Klimkiewicz traite du rôle de la traduction féministe dans l'esthétique postmoderne. La traduction féministe, motivée par la co-production et la réinterprétation, recouperait le texte postmoderne qui se caractérise notamment par son emploi développé de l'intertextualité et de la parodie. La traduction féministe s'apparente à la lecture critique et met dès lors en question la notion "d'équivalence" textuelle. Face à l'appel de la traduction, Klimkiewicz prône une "réponse somatique" qui donnerait une voix au corps et permettrait de "travailler dans le plaisir". Poursuivant la logique de son analyse de la co-production, Klimkiewicz met en garde les féministes contre l'enfermement de leurs paroles dans une sorte de "sororité" et souhaite l'ouverture de leurs dires à ceux des femmes d'ailleurs et des hommes rebelles. En ceci, cet article parmi d'autres dans ce recueil cherche, comme le souligne la préface de Lori Saint-Martin, à "repenser le masculin et le féminin en complémentarité et en réciprocité plutôt qu'en simple opposition" (12). Le fait que la plupart de ces travaux provient de la plume de chercheuses en début de carrière n'enlève rien au mérite de ce petit livre qui remplit sa mission d'ouverture aux multiples facettes du féminin. Il mérite de trouver sa place parmi les ouvrages utiles et stimulants de la critique féministe francophone. Salah KhanReed College Rye, Gill, and Michael Worten, eds. Women's Writing in Contemporary France. New Writers, New Literatures in the 1990s. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002. Pp [i]-ix; 262. ISBN 0-7190-62276 . $27.95. It is a mark of changing times that courses in French literature, especially in English-speaking countries, have somehow shifted away from canonical texts. They tend to include a larger number of recent novels, for reasons easily understood. In an attempt to introduce an accurate and a lively set of images and values about French culture, teachers of contemporary French literature appreciate a critical approach that will help make their selection. They also value collections of essays that combine various approaches and convey the historical and thematic background of works presented. Gill Rye and Michael Worton's Women s Writing in Contemporary France is just such a valuable contribution to the vast field that remains to be researched to the full extent as years pass and authors' names remain or disappear from the French literary scene. As the editors write in their rich and thorough "Introduction," their intent was to "introduce to English-speaking readers" what indeed appears to be "some of the most interesting writing published by women in France in the 1990s" (2). The originality of the vol- 132Women in French Studies time consists in its successful combination ofthe leading themes in contemporary French women's writing. This collection ofessays also tries to predict how literature will evolve in the coming years, with regard to that written by women, so very present in today's France, yet not always fully appreciated. The editors consider the proliferation ofwriting by women, in the 1990s, as a consequence ofthe "explosion" brought about after 1968 through "radical feminist activism" and the new political awareness ofwomen, which gave rise to the new notion oí écritureféminine such as established and practiced by Cixous and other authors, that was itself to some degree prepared by the nouveau roman's experimental prose (3, 5). Helped by the awareness of the sexual difference (Irigaray) and of the particularity of women's writing (Kristeva), women novelists have developed a variety ofapproaches and also became firmly established subjects on French literary scene (8). The reversal of genre boundaries as well as boundaries "between reality and text" (11), together with the first-person narrative that abolishes "a distinction between autobiography and the novel" (10) are some ofthe marks of current trends in women...