Contemporary Fiction in French

Demonstrates how contemporary fiction in French has become a polycentric and transnational field of vibrant and varied experimentation.

Anna-Louise Milne (Edited by), Russell Williams (Edited by)

9781108475792, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 2021

320 pages
23.6 x 15.8 x 2.3 cm, 0.579 kg

Our global literary field is fluid and exists in a state of constant evolution. Contemporary fiction in French has become a polycentric and transnational field of vibrant and varied experimentation; the collapse of the distinction between 'French' and 'Francophone' literature has opened up French writing to a world of new influences and interactions. In this collection, renowned scholars provide thoughtful close readings of a whole range of genres, from graphic novels to crime fiction to the influence of television and film, to analyse modern French fiction in its historical and sociological context. Allowing students of contemporary French literature and culture to situate specific works within broader trends, the volume provides an engaging, global and timely overview of contemporary fiction writing in French, and demonstrates how our modern literary world is more complex and diverse than ever before.

Introduction: Mapping the contemporary Anna-Louise Milne and Russell Williams
1. Mediterranean francophone writing Edwige Tamalet Talbayev
2. After the experiment Simon Kemp
3. Getting a future: Fiction and social reproduction Anna-Louise Milne
4. Contemporary French fiction and the world: Transnationalism, translingualism and the limits of genre Charles Forsdick
5. The Franco-American novel Russell Williams
6. Graphic novel revolution(s) Laurence Grove
7. 'Back in the USSR': The prose of Andreï Makine and Antoine Volodine Helena Duffy
8. Fictions of self Shirley Jordan
9. Trauma, transmission, repression Maxim Silverman
10. Wretched of the Sea: Boat people and narratives of displacement Subha Xavier
11. Urban Dystopias Gillian Jein
12. Imagining civil war in the contemporary French novel Martin Crowley.

Subject Areas: Society & culture: general [JF], French Revolution [HBTV2], Literature & literary studies [D]