Fictions of Race in Contemporary French Literature: French Writers, White Writing

Contemporary French writers have embarked on various quests for new sources of thematic and formal inspiration which are increasingly tied to issues of postcolonial legacies. However, French literature has never been consistently examined through the lens of race, ethnicity, and its relation to (post)coloniality. Fictions of Race in Contemporary French Literature is the first scholarly study to engage with the figure of the White writer and explore the White literary gaze in contemporary France. The book highlights the inherent postcoloniality of White Hexagonal literature in a context marked by institutionalized colour-blindness, and offers a reflection on responsible writing in and about postcolonial France.

The book identifies a set of formal features, functions, and aesthetic dispositions which reveal the ways in which White writers grapple with postcolonial subjects. It focuses on seven case studies featuring texts by Marie Darrieussecq, Virginie Despentes, Annie Ernaux, Nicolas Fargues, Pierre Lemaitre, Édouard Louis, and Nicolas Mathieu. Achille and Panaïté argue that it is imperative to recast the enduring boundedness of race and empire as a matter of equal concern to White and non-White writers.

Étienne Achille, Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Villanova University, Oana PanaïtÃ(c), Ruth N. Halls Professor of French and Francophone Studies, Indiana University

Étienne Achille is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Villanova University. His publications include the monograph Mythologies postcoloniales. Pour une dÃ(c)colonisation du quotidien (2018, co-authored with L. Moudileno;) and the volume Postcolonial Realms of Memory. Sites and Symbols in Modern France (2020, co-edited with C. Forsdick and L. Moudileno).

Oana PanaïtÃ(c) is Ruth N. Halls Professor of French and Francophone Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of Des littÃ(c)ratures-mondes en français. Écritures singulières, poÃ(c)tiques transfrontalières dans la prose contemporaine (2012), The Colonial Fortune in Contemporary Fiction in French (2017), and Necrofiction and the Politics of Literary Memory (2022).