S. Bainbrigge, Culture and Identity in Belgian Francophone Writing. Dialogue, Diversity and Displacement

BAINBRIGGE, Susan, Culture and Identity in Belgian Francophone Writing. Dialogue, Diversity and Displacement, Oxford, Bern / Berlin / Bruxelles / Frankfurt am Main / New York / Wien, Peter Lang (Modern French Identities), 2009, 230 p.

ISBN  978-3-03911-382-8

RÉSUMÉ

Few full-length studies exist in English on French-speaking authorsfrom Belgium. What, if any, are the particular features of francophoneBelgian writing? This book explores questions of cultural and literaryidentity, and offers an overview of currents in critical debateregarding the place of francophone Belgian writing and its relationshipto its larger neighbour, but also engages with broader questionsconcerning the classification of 'francophone' literature.
Thestudy brings together well-known and less well-known modern andcontemporary writers (Suzanne Lilar, Neel Doff, Dominique Rolin,Jacqueline Harpman, Françoise Mallet-Joris, Jean Muno, NicoleMalinconi, and Amélie Nothomb) whose works share a number of recurringthemes and features, notably a preoccupation with questions of identityand alterity. Overall, the study highlights the diverse ways in whichthese questions of cultural identity and alterity emerge as a dominanttheme throughout the corpus, viewed through a series of literary andcultural frameworks which bring together perspectives both local andglobal.

TABLE DES MATIÈRES

Francophone Belgian writing: from Neel Doff to Amélie Nothomb (aliterary and cultural analysis of selected writings by Neel Doff,Suzanne Lilar, Dominique Rolin, Jacqueline Harpman, FrançoiseMallet-Joris, Jean Muno, Nicole Malinconi, and Amélie Nothomb) -Identity and alterity: intertextuality and its relationship to canonformation - Depictions of the themes of marginality and belonging,exile and alienation - Belgium and beyond - Experimental writingpractices: autobiography and autofictions - Genre innovations - Theplace of Belgian francophone writing in francophone (and other)frameworks.

BIOGRAPHIE

Susan Bainbrigge is Senior Lecturer in French at the University ofEdinburgh, Scotland. She has published on a variety of authors intwentieth-century and contemporary fiction and autobiography, includingWriting against Death: The Autobiographies of Simone de Beauvoir.