first-hand experience with the war. Nevertheless, male and female writers from this second generation inherited the legacy of the Algerian war. As a result, evidence of the specters of this war, which was only officially labeled as such by the French government in 1999, can be found throughout their writing. Most of the works addressed in the second part were published after 1980. Among the genres treated are theater, roman policier, and bande dessinée. The inclusion of narratives by several female writers highlights the gendered nature of colonization , war, and the post-colonial. The presence of a variety of literary genres and subaltern voices across two generations contributes to the overall strength and quality of the volume. It concludes with a roundtable discussion led by Guy Dugas, with the participation of Maïssa Bey, Virginie Buisson, Bertrand Leclair, and Arno Bertina. This informal format provides another framework through which readers can access the voices and experiences of post-colonial writers, as they discuss the themes of artistic production and the Algerian War. I recommend this book to scholars whose research focuses on war literature, the Algerian War, decolonization, and the post-colonial era in France and Algeria; it will be equally interesting to individuals researching the history and socio-political role of publishing houses and editors. University of North Dakota Sarah E. Mosher BARJONET, AURÉLIE. Zola d’Ouest en Est: le naturalisme en France et dans les deux Allemagnes. Rennes: PU de Rennes, 2010. ISBN 978-2-7535-1178-1. Pp. 280. 20 a. During the nineteenth century, the themes and style of Zola’s novels as well as his public defense of Alfred Dreyfus earned him, depending on the audience, a degree of either admiration or scorn that shaped his reputation until after World War II. Barjonet’s study traces the critical reception of Zola after 1945 in East Germany and to a lesser extent in West Germany and France. In this account of scholars’ efforts to reevaluate Zola’s literary legacy, she highlights the central role that political ideology played in shaping critical opinions. Just as post-war East Germany began reeducating its citizenry for the demands of the new socialist state, Rita Schober, the réceptrice dominante for Zola, was chosen to direct the publication of fresh translations of the Rougon-Macquart series, and her editorial work effectively resituated Zola’s place in literary history. Schober’s critical introductions, written between 1952 and 1976, diverged from the traditionally negative Marxist view of Zola’s naturalist, biological explanations of society. Instead, she praised the novelist for being at once a progressive social critic—who wrote at a time when “la problématique sociale” (107) was rarely a topic for literature—as well as a public figure who took action to combat the injustice of the Dreyfus Affair. Barjonet describes the personalities of those whose literary, political, and social debates contributed to this initial reinterpretation of Zola for East German readers. A second phase of the novelist’s réhabilitation occurred when Schober’s critical appreciation of his works shifted toward a focus on form and stylistics. Although the postfaces that she wrote for the RougonMacquart series after the fall of the Berlin Wall permitted her to revisit her interpretations of these novels, she continued even in 2005 to reject the mythological aspects of Zola’s œuvre, seeing them as proof of his “approche déshistoricisée” (133) and as an indication of the novelist’s “incapacité à percer la causalité réelle 1026 FRENCH REVIEW 86.5 des rapports sociaux” (135). For Barjonet, such assessments underscore the fact that Schober did not abandon “toutes ses critiques de Zola après la réunification, malgré une approche littéraire moderne” (135). In West Germany, where social criticism was less prominent during the post-war period, scholars took more interest in structures and forms characteristic of Zola’s novels. Among French critics, on the other hand, the centenary of the writer’s birth prompted a reexamination of his letters and manuscripts. This renewed interest in Zola, reflected in works by Poulet, Bachelard, Sartre, Barthes, Butor, Deleuze, Picon, Mitterand, and Borie, established Zola’s role as a modern myth...
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Aug 1, 2013
James W Jones 
Open Access