Disappearance and Candor in Contemporary Women’s Writing

Using the example of Marcel Proust’s character Albertine, this book argues that the trope of the disappeared woman stems from the male narrator’s inability see beyond his own projections; women’s narratives challenge those constraints.

Lane Glisson adopts a transnational, comparatist approach to examine the ways that authors Rachel Kushner, Elena Ferrante, Kamala Das, Liliana Heker, and Cristina Rivera Garza diverge from Proust’s model to contest the states of disappearance that hinder women. Conversely, she also examines how these authors at times portray disappearance as a strategy of protection from domination or violence, a space to share ideas and create.

Disappearance and Candor in Contemporary Women’s Writing examines these works in the context of each author’s culture and history, drawing from the writing of philosophers, historians, artists, and activists. In doing so, the author addresses broader questions of human rights by focusing on authoritarian governments’ use of gendered language and the feminization of enemies to justify the disappearance of political opponents or scapegoated minorities.

Lane Glisson is Professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.