Immigrant Narratives in Contemporary France

(Hardback)

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Examines the literature of immigration by authors who moved to France from the Caribbean, the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia after World War II. The first comprehensive survey of its kind in English, this book examines the experience of immigration as represented by authors who moved to France from the Caribbean, the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia after World War II. Essays by expert contributors address the literary productions of different ethnic groups while taking into account generational differences and the effects of class and gender. The focus on immigration, a subject which has moved to the center of many sensitive social and political debates, raises questions related to cultural hybridity, identity politics, border writing, and the status of minority literature within the traditional literary canon, all of which constitute vital areas of research in literary, cultural, and historical studies today. Included are broad social and historical chapters on general topics, along with essays providing detailed readings of specific texts and authors. A key objective of the book is to consider the ways in which literary texts by authors of immigrant origin consider what it means to be French and how these works shape debates about French national and cultural identity. The contributors discuss such issues as cultural hybridity, linguistic identity, and the textualization and theorization of otherness.

Reviews

.,."an excellent ethnographic reference....Large academic collections; all levels."-Choice
"The cumulative effect of this lucid, thought-provoking collection is an awareness of the wide range of new ethnic minority voices(particularly women's voices)seeking a place in France, and of the importance of their challenges to normative notions of French literature and French narratives of nation....[t]his book provides an excellent, comprehensive overview of the diverse ways in which writers of immagrant origin are 'textualising' their experiences, and is a crucial work for everyone interested in postcolonial French literature."-Journal of Modern & Contemporary France
...an excellent ethnographic reference....Large academic collections; all levels.-Choice
The cumulative effect of this lucid, thought-provoking collection is an awareness of the wide range of new ethnic minority voices(particularly women's voices)seeking a place in France, and of the importance of their challenges to normative notions of French literature and French narratives of nation....[t]his book provides an excellent, comprehensive overview of the diverse ways in which writers of immagrant origin are 'textualising' their experiences, and is a crucial work for everyone interested in postcolonial French literature.-Journal of Modern & Contemporary France
..."an excellent ethnographic reference....Large academic collections; all levels."-Choice

Author Bio

Susan Ireland is Associate Professor of French at Grinnell College; Patrice J. Proulx is Associate Professor of French and a member of the Women's Studies faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.