Francophone Women Writers

This anthology seeks to introduce women writers in the "global" Francophone world by investigating the place of feminist, postcolonial and cross-cultural theories in interpreting women francophone literature. The book also allows the reader to examine the extent to which women writers reflect or negate the conventional archetypes of Francophone literature, how they reinvent the political, cultural and critical discourse of their time and place, and create their own identity from objectification to subjectivity.The ambition of this anthology is to explore these themes at a time when globalization is redefining the concepts of language, identity, space and history, and transforming the rapport of each individual to the "other". While most research on the subject focus on specific countries or regions, this volume offers a new critical introduction to Francophone women authors from a broad geographical range in North and West Africa, the Near East, the Pacific, North America, the Caribbean Islands and Europe. Significantly, this study assembles a broad and representative collection of texts written by women authors that will generate a fruitful and critical reflection among students and scholars. The selected texts present critical issues that students and readers at large need to explore to further their knowledge of francophone literature and culture.

Eric Touya de Marenne has selected, from the vast body of eminent Francophone women's writings, a fascinating group of texts that focus on some of the most urgent and compelling issues in the post-colonial Francophone world. The protagonists share a common struggle to define themselves in a world where the female gender and a non-hegemonic cultural origin conspire to repress their search for identity and self-realization. These admirable voices enter into a dialogue that brings out the similarities and differences among diverse female destinies in the most important regions of worldwide Francophonie. The outstanding scholarly apparatus provided by Professor Touya de Marenne includes an excellent introduction and extensive individual and general bibliographies, and will be an excellent research tool for future scholars in the field., Touya de Marenne (Clemson Univ.) presents excerpts from Francophone women authors (translated into English) that address, as the subtitle says, issues of feminism, postcolonialism, and cross-cultural matters. Departing from the more standard approach (which concentrates on defined geographical areas), the author covers all the Francophone regions of the world and offers a comparative perspective. In the introduction, he reflects on the role and validity of feminist and postcolonial theories in examining works of Francophone women writers. Here he warns against the danger of blindly applying Western criticism to Francophone texts, and highlights the need to recognize Francophone women writers' singularity and diversity while finding common ground and establishing dialogues among them. Touya de Marenne groups the selections into five chapters: "Feminisms," "Postcolonialisms," "Cross-Cultures," "Counter-Discourses," and "Beyond Borders." These look at, respectively, women's struggle to resist masculine domination; rebellion against the politics of colonization; hybrid identities and attempts to find their true identity; resistance to oppressive family order and discourse; and exploration of spiritual dimensions and dissolution of boundaries. For each chapter, the author provides, in addition to the selected material, opening remarks, a brief introduction containing essential biographical and contextual information, and a selected bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended Lower-division undergraduates through faculty., This anthology of texts by francophone women writers offers a critical introduction to an important body of work and is original in its coverage of a wide range of geographical areas of the non-Metropolitan French-speaking world. It includes sample texts from a selection of key authors, as well as a short presentation of each writer and her works, and a bibliography for further reading. Maryse Condé's Preface sets up questions that form the book's rationale, most notably why these women's voices are not more clearly heard....the impressive scope of the project ensures that the volume retains both interest and value. Importantly, Touya de Marenne also provides the readers with careful translations of the texts...opening up this important and underdiscussed corpus to scholars who may not be able to speak or read French., The first anthology of its kind, Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures by Eric Touya de Marenne spans a vast geo-cultural range. Touya de Marenne innovatively brings together women writers from North Africa, West Africa, North America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Pacific, and the Near East. The selected writers are well-studied and, in some cases, canonical voices of francophone literatures. . . .Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures presents a compelling selection of texts. The juxtaposition of authors who had never been brought together before will be of interest to scholars and teachers of francophone literatures, while the biographical notes and individual and general bibliographies make this anthology an important resource book for students of francophone women’s writings., Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures seems not only to be a valuable book for researchers, but also, thanks to its clear, simple, and organized structure, an ideal tool for students and public non-academics. The choice of the translation texts in English helps to expand the field potential readership.

Eric Touya de Marenne is associate professor of French at Clemson University.