Refiguring Les Années Noires

Literary Representations of the Nazi Occupation

Kathy Comfort

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2018
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798881884246
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: French Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Through a close reading of seven literary memoirs of the Nazi Occupation of France, Refiguring Les Années Noires: Literary Representations of the Nazi Occupation shows how the memory of the period has been shaped by political and social factors. An interdisciplinary study incorporating trauma theory, history, and folklore studies, this book examines representations of the Occupation by a diverse group of writers ranging from a female Resistance fighter to one of the first French Roma novelists. The methodological diversity of the volume brings to the fore each author's unique perspective and demonstrates that their works are at once historically and artistically significant. Above all, this book gives voice to groups whose experiences in occupied France have largely been forgotten.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Betrayal of Memory in Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s D’un château l’autre
• 2 Exposing the Résistancialisme Myth in Jean Cayrol’s Les Corps étrangers
• 3 Proustian Echoes in Annie Guéhenno’s L’Épreuve
• 4 Matéo Maximoff’s La Septième fille
• 5 Absorbing and Conjuring the Literary Canon in Charlotte Delbo’s Spectres, mes compagnons
• 6 Postmemory and Familial Inquest in Évelyne Le Garrec’s La Rive allemande de ma mémoire
• 7 Externalizing Psychic Suffering in Marguerite Duras’s “La Douleur” and “Albert des Capitales”
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author