Writing from Experience: The Place of the Personal in French Feminist Writing

Author(s): Lyn Thomas and Emma Webb

Source: Feminist Review, No. 61, Snakes and Ladders: Reviewing Feminisms at Century's End
(Spring, 1999), pp. 27-48
Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1395571
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Writing from Experience:
ThePlaceof the Personalin FrenchFeministWriting
Lyn Thomas and Emma Webb

Abstract I
m

z
Through a discussion of the work of Marie Cardinal and Annie Ernaux, this article
aims to problematize the anglophone academic world's tendency to associate _
French feminisms predominantly with avant-garde or highly theoretical texts. The
work of Ernaux and Cardinal is presented alongside a discussion of its reception I
by readers and critics in France, and by academics in English-speaking countries.
The first part of the article identifies aspects of Ernaux's and Cardinal's works ,
which cannot be encompassed within a critical framework based on the dichotomy
between naive realism on the one hand and the politically and linguistically radical
text on the other. Ernaux's plain language, for instance, is clearly very unlike the
linguistic experimentation of 'feminine writing'; nonetheless the emphasis on social
class in her writing constitutes a political intervention which is at least equally
valid.

The reception study in the second part of the article provides further evidence of
the relevance to gender politics in France of Cardinal's The Words to Say It (1975)
and texts published by Annie Ernaux in the 1980s and 1990s. The ambivalent
response of critics seems to indicate the troubling nature of writing which com-
bines the codes of realism and autobiography (or autobiographical fiction in Car-
dinal's case) with the depiction of taboo subjects such as menstruation, or a
daughter's response to her mother's debilitating illness and death. The article also
charts the widespread popularity of these texts in France, particularly with women
readers, and gives some examples of the pleasures described in letters to the
authors. In conclusion, we argue that the ambivalent space between popular and
high culture occupied (albeit differently) by Ernaux and Cardinal may be particu-
larly effective in terms of gender politics, and that even in the late 1990s, the per-
sonal may be as political as ever.

Keywords
French feminisms; women's writing; autobiography; reception; Marie Cardinal;
Annie Ernaux

27
 Introduction
z
What kind of images spring to mind when French feminism is referred to?
The towering, but in some eyes tarnished, figure of Simone de Beauvoir?
Those women in 1968 who despite their male companions' rhetoric of
equality found themselves making the coffee and typing up the minutes of
the revolutionary councils? The stylish and spacious des femmes bookshop
in rue de Seine, or its literary equivalent - the linguistic complexities of the
very different writers grouped together under the label ecriture feminine?
The aim of this article is not to assess the impact of these events and per-
sonalities on the present, but to explore an area of feminist writing in
France which is not part of these images, and which generally receives less
attention in the anglophone world.
We will be looking at the work of two writers - Marie Cardinal and Annie
Ernaux - who perhaps have more in common with feminist autobio-
graphical writing published in Germany, Holland, Britain and America
since the 1970s, than with the 'feminine writing' associated with France
(see Felski, 1989). The first person writing of Ernaux and Cardinal, which
in both cases is heavily based on personal experience, may be seen as
slightly passe when compared with the radical linguistic and political
experimentation of writers such as Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous or
Monique Wittig. The use of the first person, and the (albeit to different
degrees) publicly acknowledged links between the writer's life and her
work seem to relegate Ernaux, Cardinal and others to an unfashionable
backwater, a literary flashback to the 1970s which, unlike flared trousers
and platform shoes, has not undergone a revival. We will be arguing that
Ernaux's and Cardinal's more conventional approach to literature does not
preclude them from making a significant contribution to the possibility of
cultural and political change for French women, and that, on the contrary,
many aspects of their work profoundly challenge both their readers' pre-
conceptions, and the gender inequalities of French society.
In many ways we are following on from the work of Rita Felski, who has
argued that 'the reception of French feminism in the English-speaking
world has been highly selective, focusing on Helene Cixous and other pro-
ponents of l'ecriture feminine to the detriment of alternative positions'
(Felski, 1989: 20). We will discuss the reception of Ernaux and Cardinal,
both in order to suggest reasons for the dominance and exclusions identi-
fied by Felski, and to argue for the importance of their work in terms of
its accessibility and wide popularity in France, particularly with women
readers. First, however, we will provide a discussion of the contemporary
relevance of writing which operates predominantly, in Cardinal's case,
2 within the conventions of autobiographical fiction and, in that of Annie
Ernaux, in accordance with Lejeune's autobiographical pact (where the 1
coincidence of name and identity of the author and narrator of the text I
defines the mode of reading; Lejeune, 1975). If the need to bring women's E
experience into literature led to a flowering of feminist autobiographies in c
the 1970s, to what extent does the reading and writing of personal life- 3

histories still have a role for feminisms today? :m

-4

Troublingtruths:identity and intertextuality in the writing of i1

Annie Ernauxand MarieCardinal |
Rita Felski has coined the term 'feminist confessional' to describe the sub-
genre of autobiographical writing which presents 'the most personal and m
intimate details of the author's life' in order to create a bond between m
I-n
'female author and female reader' (Felski, 1989: 88). For authors like Car- 3

dinal, writing the personal was seen as a political act which would
empower women through the exploration of their marginal status and >
exclusion from public discourse. Cardinal's background as a middle-class |
French woman born and brought up in Algeria led to a fragmented sense
of self, and to a need to write as an affirmation of her identity. This process
is particularly apparent in The Words to Say It, where Cardinal employs
the Bildungsroman (self-discovery novel) format and an intimate first-
person narrative voice to recount the story of a woman's struggle to over-
come debilitating psychological problems. The writing of her own
life-history led Cardinal to a sense of sisterhood and shared gender experi-
ence, which are foregrounded in the text: the narrator achieves an auton-
omous identity, in part through her conversion to the feminist cause
(Cardinal, 1975).1
For Ernaux, it was the need to express and explore her own experience of
class-based oppression and the losses involved in the process of changing
class through education which moved her to write. If class is in many ways
Ernaux's dominant theme, it is never separated from issues of gender and
sexuality. In The Frozen Woman, notably, Ernaux explores the inter-
relationship of these areas of oppression, in a first-person narrative focused
primarily on 'clearing the path of my development as a woman' (Ernaux,
1981: 63). Later, in A Womans Story, Ernaux makes the combination of
political and personal motivation in her writing abundantly clear; she is
concerned to bring her working-class culture of origin into literature,
through the account of her mother's life: 'My mother, born into an
oppressed culture she wanted to escape from, had to become history herself
so that I could feel less alone and artificial in the dominant world of words
and ideas which, according to her wishes, has become mine' (Ernaux,
1988: 106). 29
 The growing emphasison differencewithin the feministmovement,and
the postcolonial and postmodern distrust of totalizing discourseshave
meant that writers working in this genre often come under fire for what is
seen as a naive emulationof patriarchalvalues and modes of communi-
cation. It is interestingto considerthe extent to which TorilMoi's seminal
analysisof the differencesbetweenFrenchand Anglo/Americanwomen's
writinghas had the perhapsunforeseenconsequenceof constructingcom-
municative writing2 as the 'other' of feminist literature (Moi, 1985).
Indeed,while Moi providesa balancedcritiqueof the respectiveschools
of thought,those readingthe text might be temptedto exoticizethe ecrit-
ure in Frenchwomen's writing and to oversimplifyits Anglo/American
counterpartas crude social realism.As Rita Felskihas argued,it may be
dangerousfor feministsto overestimatethe political potentialof the dis-
ruptivetextualstrategiesof ecriturefeminine. Felskiremindsus that 'there
exists no obvious relationbetweenthe subversionof languagestructures
and the processesof social struggleand change'(Felski,1989: 6). Making
a similarpoint, PatriciaWaughwarns against the conflation of the aes-
thetic and the political spherewhile arguingthat feminism'must believe
in the possibilityof a communityof addresssituated in an oppositional
space which can allow for the connectionof the "smallpersonalvoice"
(Doris Lessing'sterm)of one feministto anotherand to other liberationist
movements'(Waugh,1992: 195). The positiveresponseof women readers
to the texts of Marie Cardinaland Annie Ernaux,discussedbelow, seems
exemplaryboth of Felski'sbond betweenreaderand writer,and Waugh's
'communityof address',suggestingthat their widely read and accessible
texts are far from being politicallydefunct.

The association of communicativeliteratureof the type produced by

Ernauxand Cardinalwith naive social documentaryfails, furthermore,to
take account of the transformativenatureof the process of readingand
writingitself.A numberof criticshave drawnattentionto the fact that the
sense of differencewhich marksmany femalewriters'explorationof iden-
tity alreadyensuresan awarenessof the problematicrelationshipbetween
discourseand reality,and of the constructednature of identity.For the
female autograph,who, in the words of EstelleJelinek, has always felt
herself to be 'different from, other than, or outside the male world', the
boundaryline betweennarrativeconstructionand memory,representation
and reality, fact and fiction has perhaps never been clearly delineated
(Jelinek, 1986: 187). Molly Hite's definition of the genre as 'a revisionary
activity [which] reinscribes a prescribed subjectivity in another register [in
order to] bring a somewhat different self into being' (Hite, 1991: xv) can
effectively be applied to those texts which at first hand appear to adopt
3v more traditional approaches to narrating the self. Thus, while many
readers have found it liberating to read The Words to Say It as the true I
story of a woman's recovery from a nervous breakdown, it is equally plaus- g
ible to interpret the text as a metacommentary on the act of writing itself. :
The title, which implies the primary relationship between language and g
identity, highlights the literary nature of the work: the narrator's voyage c
of discovery can ultimately be read as a coming to authorship. For her,
autonomous identity is confirmed when she manages to politicize her per-
sonal experience through the publication of her first book.

Although Cardinal's writing is heavily based on her own life, her contin- .
ual rewriting and reinvention of her past history indicate a sophisticated z
understanding of the constructed nature of autobiographical narratives. z
Cardinal does not, in fact, base her work on the conventional autobio- .
graphical pact outlined by Philippe Lejeune as a prerequisite for the generic
classification of a text as autobiography. Indeed, she has argued that her 3

writing in the third person might be as self-revelatory as her first person

narratives (Cardinal, 1977: 85). The 'truthfulness' of the narrative of The b
Words to Say It is notably called into question in the section when the
narrator recounts her mother's revelation that she had tried to abort her.
Cardinal opens chapter 7 by painstakingly constructing the setting of the
encounter between mother and daughter. She offers the reader a host of
realist details, including the date and the location of the encounter. The
posture, expression and clothes of the narrator's mother are all recalled in
precise detail. However, several pages on, the narrator calls the accuracy
of her memory into question, confessing that: 'In truth, this is not how it
went. We were not in the living room at the farm in front of the wood
fire.... We were on the slope of a very long street, the name of which I
have by chance forgotten' (Cardinal, 1975, trans. 1983: 131). Similarly, in
her conversations with Annie Leclerc, Cardinal has drawn attention to the
ways in which she restructured her past in order to produce a more con-
vincing narrative. For instance, while the effect of the abortion revelation
is attributed a key place in the text, this was of less significance in Cardi-
nal's actual life (Cardinal, 1977: 28). Commenting upon the intertextual
nature of Cardinal'swriting, Lucille Cairns has identified a set of key actors
and events which recur in various forms in many of Cardinal's texts:
A young woman, keenly alive to the sensuous beauty of her Mediterranean
environment,marriesearly and enduresexile; has childrenin close succession;
suffersa sense of physicaldegeneration;falls into mentalmalaiseand anguish;
is estrangedfromherhusband(who alwaysdepartsto work in North America);
takes a lover;and graduallyestablishesan innerbalance.
(Cairns,1992: 19)
In her study of Cardinal, Carolyn A. Durham has argued for a reading of
her texts as 'a context, the locus of the complex intersections - at once -
31
 intergenderal,intertextual and interdisciplinary- of modern thought'
(Durham,1992: 1). She proposesthat Cardinal'sinterestboth in textual-
. ity and embodiedsexualitycan 'pointthe way' to a 'theoreticaland textual
reconciliation'betweenFrenchand Anglo/Americanfeminisms(Durham,
z 1992: 11). In her more recentworks Cardinalwrites in the third person,
and the genericdescriptionroman(novel)is displayedon the cover.In texts
* such as Commesi de rien n'etait,which offers a fragmentedand kaleido-
scopic view of consumersociety, and Les Jeudis de Charleset de Lula,
which consists of a series of 'conversations'between the protagonists,
experimentationwith narrative voice and formal construction have
becomepredominant(Cardinal,1990 and 1993). By crossingthe border-
lines between different cultural contexts and literary genres Cardinal
rejectsfixed definitionsof literatureand of femaleidentityitself.
A similarquestioningof any simple relationshipbetween representation
and realitycan be found in the intertextualityof AnnieErnaux'sworks. In
Cleaned Out, her first novel, published in 1974, Ernaux explored the
changeof class which had left her with feelingsof guilt, angerand uncer-
tainty.This theme is omnipresentin her writing, though foregroundedto
varyingextents.It is significantthat overtwentyyearsafterthe publication
of Cleaned Out, Ernauxhas returnedto an exploration of the negative
emotionalconsequencesof social mobilityin La Honte (Shame),published
in January1997. Inevitably,as in Cardinal'scase, the constantreworking
of the materialof her own life impliesan awarenessof the impossibilityof
arrivingat a final truth, even if at times, this seems to be the purpose,or
the motivatingdesire, of the project.Thus in A Woman'sStory, Ernaux
declaresherselfunableto rewritethe story of her father'sdeath, since the
definitiveversion, or more precisely order of words, has already been
sought, and found, through the writing of Positions: 'I cannot describe
those momentsbecauseI have alreadydone so in anotherbook, that is to
say that anotheraccount,with differentwords, a differentorderingof the
sentenceswill neverbe possible'(Ernaux,1988: 73). Yet, in La Honte, we
readdescriptionsof hithertoconcealedeventsin the father'ssharedhistory
with his daughter,includinghis failed attempton the mother'slife, which
triggersboth the narrativeand Ernaux'senduringsense of shame.In 1997
Ernauxalso published'Jene suis pas sortie de ma nuit', a text she presents
as the uneditednotes she wrote duringthe sad month's of her mother's
decline, and eventualdeath from Alzheimer'sdisease.3As she comments
in the text, this publicationquestionsthe truth, or perfectorderof words
establishedin A Woman'sStory, providinga more troublingand painful
image of the mother,and the mother/daughterrelationship:
For a long time I thought I would never publish it. Perhaps I wanted to leave a
,&
3 single image, a single truth - which I had tried to get close to in A Woman's
 Story- about my motherand my relationshipwith her.I now believethat the Z
-.4
unity and coherencewhich a work of art resultsin - howeverstrongthe desire
to take the most contradictorydata into account- must be disruptedwhenever >

possible.
(Ernaux,1997b: 12) 3

Interestingly, Ernaux's intertextual rewriting of her past does seem to

trouble and disturb her critics.4 However, intertextuality is not the only *
feature of Ernaux's writing which demonstrates her complex and sophisti-
cated relationship to the much discussed 'realism' of her texts (for the latter X
see Holmes, 1996 and McIlvanney, 1992). Ernaux, unlike Cardinal, will- ?
ingly espouses Lejeune's autobiographical pact, and indeed sees the use of -
the first person as fundamental to the political content of her writing: 'I m
felt that the autobiographical "I" which declares itself as such was a more n

direct political action; it obliges the reader to take up a position in relation 3

to the text' (unpublished interview with Lyn Thomas, 1997). Nonetheless, L

the pact is simultaneously threatened and reinforced by the author's fre-

quent interventions in the narrative to address the reader directly. On the z
one hand, the 'truth' of the autobiographical account is called into ques-
tion by Ernaux's own reflections on its partial, and subjective nature; in
the recent texts particularly, she depicts herself as a fully aware, post-
modern subject:
For me - and perhapsfor all those of my generation- whose memoriesare
attachedto a summerpop-song,a fashionablebelt, to thingswhicharedestined
to be ephemeral,memory brings no proof of permanenceto my identity.It
makesme feel, and is the confirmationof my fragmentationand my historicity.
(Ernaux,1997a: 95-6)
Yet, at the same time, these interventions confirm the sense that there is 'a
person in the text', and foster the reader/writer identification, which Felski
sees as a specific feature of the consciousness-raising function of feminist
literature. We will now turn our attention to the other essential component
of Felski's model - the attentive woman reader, and to readers and read-
ings generally, in order to explore the cultural and political places occu-
pied by the two writers.

The academic reception of Frenchwomen writers outside France

An in-depth study of the academic reception of a range of French women
writers is beyond the remit of this article, but certain tendencies can be
observed on the basis both of our impressions as academics working in the
field, and of the two main relevant bibliographical databases - the BIDS
ISI service, and the Modern Languages Association International Bibliog-
raphy. Taking Irigaray and Cixous as examples of writers associated with 33
 ecriture feminine, and comparing them with Cardinal and Ernaux, it
would seem that the formerhavereceivednoticeablymore attentionin the
anglophoneacademicworld. The MLA database (1981-97) produceda
list of sixteen articles and one book on Ernaux, all published since 1990,
mainly in the US. For Cardinal,nineteen articles and two books were
listed. In comparison,in the same period, the MLA listed 150 entriesfor
Irigaray,and 226 for Cixous.Evenwithouta detailedanalysisof the nature
of thesepublications,the numbersseemto speakfor themselves.The data-
bases are not fully comprehensive,but they do providea clear indication
that the level of anglophoneacademicenthusiasmfor 'femininewriting'
massivelyexceedsthe relativelymodest,and recent,interestin Ernauxand
Cardinal.5

A furtherpoint to note is that the work on Cardinaland Ernauxtakes

place mainly in the Frenchdepartments,and FrenchStudiesjournalsof
American and British Universities,whereas Cixous and Irigaray also
attractthe attentionof academicsand journalsin Englishliterature,com-
Women'sStudies,criticaltheory,aestheticsandphilos-
parativeliterature,
ophy.6 Given the interdisciplinarynature of her work, in the case of
Irigaraythis is hardlysurprising,particularlyin relationto philosophyand
ethics. However,the significantpresenceof some Frenchwomen writers,
and almost total absenceof others from publishedwork and curriculain
Englishliteratureand Women'sStudiesdoes requiresome interrogation.
During the 1980s two key texts appearedwith the express aim of intro-
ducingFrenchfeministwritingto the anglophonereader:Ernauxand Car-
dinal are significantlyabsentfrom these influentialstudies (Marksand de
Courtivron,1981; Moi, 1985). In the 1990s, Cardinaland Ernauxhave
been includedin generalworks, such as Atack and Powrie'sContempor-
ary FrenchFiction by Women,whose aim - to correctthe 'imbalancein
the attentiondevotedto Frenchfeministliterarytheory at the expense of
fiction'- bearssome similarityto our own (Atackand Powrie, 1990: 1).
In 1991, both writers were included in a work entitled Languageand
SexualDifference:FeministWritingin France(Sellers,1991). However,as
its title suggests,this surveyis dominatedby the theoriesand main pro-
ponents of 'femininewriting'.Cardinalis discussedmainly in relationto
her approachto language,and in the briefsection on Ernaux,social class
is not mentioned (Sellers, 1991). More recently,two introductionsto
Frenchwomen's writing designed for the English-speakingreader have
been publishedin feministseries (Fallaize,1993; Holmes, 1996). Fallaize,
who concentrateson the contemporaryperiod, included both writers,
whereasHolmes,who coversthe period1848-1994, has a partchapteron
Ernaux.It may be that these texts representthe beginningof a turning
334
,
I point in the anglophonereceptionof Frenchwomen's writing, albeit led
by academicsworking in Frenchdepartments.Nonetheless,it seems that I-4
the fascinationwith 'femininewriting'as exotic 'other' is still dominant,
and that for academicanglophonefeminisms,the theoretical,not the per- W
sonal, is politicalin the 1980s and 1990s. |m

2
The critical reception of Ernauxand Cardinalin France X
The interestin writerssuch as Cixous and Irigaraywhich is so noticeable I
in the anglophoneacademicworld is arguablyratherless in evidencein 3
France.In recentyears, for instance,Irigarayhas found a more receptive Z
audience for her ideas among Italian feminists;Whitford argues that
Holland and Italy are the Europeancountriesmost interestedin her work IZ
as a philosopher(Whitford,1991). In general,women writersin France n

are less publishedand less recognizedthan women writersin the US and .

UK (Fallaize,1993: 20-1). Perhapsin part (thoughonly in part) because I,
of the refusalof some of its protagoniststo fightfor equality,feminismhas
had less influencein France,both in termsof mainstreampublishing,and z
academia.Thus, despitethe dominanceof ecriturefeminine in the anglo-
phoneview of Frenchfeminismdiscussedabove, Ernauxand Cardinalstill I
receivemore academicattentionin the Frenchdepartmentsof American,
Canadianand Britishuniversitiesthan in France,where in both cases, the
struggle to be taken seriously as writers is still an issue in the 1990s.
Althoughherewe are clearlynot able to providea comprehensivesurvey
of the receptionof these two writersin France(for Ernaux,see Thomas,
1999), we aim to highlightthe most salient features,and to bringout the
contrastbetweentheirpopularsuccessand the strugglefor literarystatus.
The amount of publishedacademicwork on Ernauxin Franceis limited
in comparisonwith the smallbut growingcorpusof scholarlyarticlespub-
lishedin Americanand BritishFrenchStudiesjournals.Althoughthereare
two books in Frenchon herwork as a whole, one was publishedin Holland
(Tondeur,1996) and the other by a fairlysmall and little-knownpublish-
ing house based in Monaco (Fernandez-Recatala,1994). Nonetheless,
Ernauxis increasinglyreferredto in anthologies,and herworks arestudied
in universitiesand schools.Thebrevity,plain style, and subjectmatterof
texts such as PositionsandA Woman'sStoryhave ensuredtheirpopularity
as set texts, which in turn has led to the publicationof scholarlyeditions
and criticalcommentariesin Britainand France(see for exampleWether-
ill, 1987 and Savean,1997). Ernauxcommentsthat the interestin herwork
in schools is linked to the dominant theme of her writing: the painful I
process of changingclass througheducation- a process experiencedby
manysecondarylevel teachers,and equallyrelevantto pupils (unpublished
interviewwith Lyn Thomas, March 1997). Also, accordingto Ernaux, -15
 there is an increasingamount of unpublishedwork on her writing, con-
sisting mainly of MA theses. Perhapsthe highpoint of Ernaux'sliterary
recognitionin France,apart from the initial acceptanceof her first novel
by Gallimard,one of France'smost prestigiouspublishinghouses, was the
Prix Renaudotwhich she won in 1984 for Positions.
ua

Despite these signs of acceptanceby the literaryand academicestablish-

ment, the FrenchsociologistIsabelleCharpentierarguesthat 'the guaran-
tors of the literaryvalue of the work of A. Ernauxare more fragilethan it
appears'(Charpentier,1994: 48). She goes on to describehow the publi-
cation in 1992 of PassionPerfect,an accountof an affairwith a younger,
marriedman, enabledmanyjournaliststo expresstheirrepressedhostility
to Ernaux,and to devaluenot only PassionPerfect,but the earlierworks,
which had generally been well received. The recurrenceof the word
impudique(immodest,indecent)in reviewsof PassionPerfectand some of
Ernaux'smore recent publicationsis particularlysignificant,indicating
both the low prestigeattributedto writing based on personalexperience,
and the genderednatureof the responseto a woman writer,who is sub-
jected to particularnotions of propriety in French culture. The book
shockedreviewerson a numberof counts- but the fact that a 'respectable'
womanwriterand teacherhad depictedherselfin the throesof an intensely
sexualpassionwas consideredparticularlyscandalous,indicatingthe very
differentmoral standardsappliedto men and women in Frenchculture.
Charpentiercarefullydocumentsthe explosionof negativitywhichPassion
Perfecttriggeredamong Ernaux'smale critics,of all politicalpersuasions.
One of the most strikingexamplesof this radicallynegativeresponseis the
articlepublishedin the left of centreLe Nouvel Observateur,entitled 'A
big trauma. Or how in Passion PerfectAnnie Ernaux fancies herself as
Emma Bovary'sgreat niece'. Jean-FranqoisJosselin expresseshis disdain
by referringto Ernauxthroughoutas 'la petiteAnnie',refusingto attribute
any literaryvalue to the work - which he describesas 'sad and banal', 'a
tiny bit obscene' - and consistentlytrivializingthe emotions expressed.
Perhapsthe key to it all is his total horror at Ernaux'sinclusion of a
popularcultureversion of 'femininity'which has no place in the French
literarycanon: 'She buys underwearsets, watches soap opera, and has a
little cry when SylvieVartansings the superb"C'estfatal, animal"' (Jos-
selin, 1992: 87). Josselin'sarticleis perhapsthe most extreme,but the com-
parisonwith EmmaBovaryis found elsewherein the journalisticwriting
on Ernaux,as is the derogatorytone (de Biaisi, 1992; Delbourg, 1997).
This linkingof a woman writerwith a male novelist'sfemalecharacteris
indicativeof the difficultyin Frenchcultureof seeing women as writing
subjects,ratherthan objectsof the male gaze, or textual mastery(see also
36 Thomas, 1999: ch. 6).
Meanwhile, as Charpentier remarks, women journalists, both in the main- 1[
stream press, and in women's magazines, produced almost entirely posi- o
tive reviews of Passion Perfect. The fact that Ernaux's slim volume
instigated a gender-based querelle in the French press is in itself significant. g
The writer and journalist Jacqueline Dana commented in L'Evenement du I
Jeudi, for instance: 'this way of depicting the signs of love, with precision >
and distance, has never been attempted before by a woman' (Dana, 1992,
quoted in Charpentier, 1994: 53). In Le Monde Josyane Savigneau
defended Ernaux against Josselin's attack in an article entitled - 'Le ,
courage d'Annie Ernaux'. Significantly, Savigneau sees Ernaux's text as lo
breaking both a literary and a social mould, in its unadorned and frank
use of the firstperson.Shecommentson a passagewhereErnauxdescribes zm
her indifference to her grown-up children at the height of her passion:
.n

The masculinedesireto stereotypewomen is out of luck here:AnnieErnauxis ,

at the opposite end of the spectrumto EmmaBovary.In her work thereis no 7
guilt, and that'swhat is No
disturbing. hysteria, no theatre.
Just a commitment
to write the truth about her passion, even when it shocks the common-sense
view... Is a woman entitledto write like this?
(Savigneau,1992: 23)
The recent publication of the short text, 'Fragments around Philippe V.'
(translated in this volume) suggests that Ernaux has every intention of con-
tinuing to 'write like this', and that she has not been intimidated by her
critics. 'Fragments' is a detailed description of the social and physical
nuances of a sexual encounter with a much younger man. The use of realist
codes in this account of an older woman's sexual experience seems in some
ways more troubling than the playful linguistic abstractions of feminine
writing, which are safely contained within the category of the avant-garde.
Here, the realistic description, for example of the pub in rue Monsieur-le-
Prince, makes the introduction (and one could argue, celebration) of the
ultimate taboo - menstrual blood - later in the text even more disturbing.
Similarly, the image of the powerful older woman/writer may be more
threatening when she is depicted as existing in contemporary social reality,
rather than a feminist utopia. This publication has led, indirectly, to a
further unleashing of critical fury. When the young man referred to in
'Fragments' (Philippe Vilain) published a novel based on his version of the
relationship with Ernaux in 1997, Le Nouvel Observateur published an
article which was vitriolic, not only about Vilain's text, but also about
Ernaux's sexual mores (Garcin, 1997b).
As with Annie Ernaux, the critical response to Marie Cardinal in France
is incommensurate with her popular appeal as a writer. In fact, Colette
Hall's analysis of Cardinal's works (published in Holland by Rodopi in
1994) is the only full-scale criticism written in the French language. Despite 17
 the fact that reviews of her work are generally favourable, and that Nobel
prize winner Toni Morrison has cited Cardinal as one of her major influ-
ences, Cardinal has failed to be included in the French canon as a writer
of 'serious' literature (Levy, 1994). Lucille Cairns has offered a plausible
o
explanation for this, arguing that 'neither her theory nor her praxis are
assimilable to avant-garde trends of the last three decades' (Cairns, 1992:
1). This analysis would seem to be borne out by the fact that Cardinal
herself has commented negatively on the the hermetic nature of some
| French theoretical writing (Cardinal, 1977: 82-97). Although in the past
Cardinal was active in the Parisian literary scene, more recently she has
adopted a more peripheral position, both textually and geographically (she
moved from the French capital to Montreal, Canada in 1984 and now
divides her time between Canada and the South of France). Thus a recent
work, Les Jeudis de Charles et de Lula has received little attention from
Parisian critics (Levy, 1993: 12). Indeed, Cardinal has recounted how the
press officer at her publishers Grasset et Fasquelle forewarned her that the
novel would not excite a great deal of critical interest in Paris because of
her currently peripheral relationship to the Parisian mouvement - a term
which for Cardinal herself remains couched in mystery (Levy, 1994: 152).
It is true that Cardinal has received two prestigious literary prizes: her
debut novel Ecoutez la mer (1962) won the Prix international du premier
roman and The Words to Say It (1975) was awarded the Prix Littre for
the best medical novel; however, as the nature of the latter prize indicates,
her work has found an audience primarily as a source of sociological study
rather than as the material for literary analysis. Commenting on the recep-
tion of The Words to Say It Cardinal has drawn attention to the tendency
for critics to deny her creative ability, preferring to classify the text as a
testimony or document on psychoanalysis. Following this pattern, one
reviewer seems determined to unmask the author as an impostor: 'This is
the background to a work dishonestly described as a novel - are such
deceptions a necessary part of the negotiation?' (Schulmann, 1995: 943).
More positively, if in the same vein, Jean-Jacques Brochier commented that
'it is the best account of healing I have read since Freud' (Brochier 1975:
51). Cardinal has proposed that the tendency to read women's writing as
'merely' autobiographical is part of a self-protective response on the part
of male critics who, in her opinion, refuse to accept that female difference
can be inscribed within the esoteric domain of Literature (Royer, 1978).
While critics may gain a sense of empowerment through reading her texts
as an unmediated transcription of her life, it appears that Cardinal's
descriptions of the female body are quite simply too direct, too real: 'One
time the blood had flowed in such large clots that it might have been said
3:8 that I was producing slices of liver' (Cardinal, 1975, trans. 1983: 31).
Interestingly,the criticsthemselvesoften expresstheirsenseof shock in the .
hyperbolicterms which they find offensive in Cardinal'snovel. Marlon o
Renard, a critic writing in a specializedliteraryjournal, highlightsthis .
aspect of the text, describingthe narratoras 'this young woman, mother a
of three babies, whose rebellious womb bleeds interminably'(Renard, 3

1975: 10). ForMadeleineChapsalof L'Express:'thenovel retainsa revolt-

ing odour of uterineblood' (Chapsal,1975: 44). Even a women's maga- X
zine, Marie-France,saw fit to warn readersthat it would be hardto avoid'
being disgustedby Cardinal'sdescriptionsof her menstrualflow (Hamel, .
1975). Cardinal'srefusalto disguiseher embodiedexperiencein academic,_
technicalor ellipticallanguagebelies many of the conventionsof 'taste' '
and 'intellectualism'which are rigorouslyenforcedwithin the Frenchliter-
ary milieu. Indeed,as PierreBourdieuhas pointed out, the refinementof
language and taste, and the subordinationof the body to a culture of 3

abstractionare the markersof Frenchhigh culture(Bourdieu,1979: 32). 2

--{
Cardinal'sreclamationof crude lexis is all the more disarmingbecauseit E
deconstructsmany of the unspoken expectationsabout what a woman z
should and should not say.
As is the case for Ernaux,the word impudiqueas a descriptionof Cardi-
nal's literarystyle appearedregularlyin reviewsof The Wordsto Say It,
thoughthe connotationswere often more positive;giventhe desireto clas-
sify Cardinal'stext as medicalevidence,her lack of 'pudeur'(modesty)can
becomean attribute,as in this review,published,significantly,in Psycholo-
gie: 'It'snot the firsttime that a writerhas triedto makeus understandthe
process of psychoanalysis;but the sincerityof Marie Cardinal'saccount,
which is withoutshameor concessions,is the closestto achievingthis goal'
(Mouareau,1975: 66). However,it would seem that 'immodesty'is a less
positiverecommendationin the literaryworld; Cardinal'sdirectapproach
to writingthe body appearsto have playeda role in the exclusionof The
Wordsto Say It from the shortlistfor the prestigiousPrix Goncourt.Car-
dinal has arguedthat her descriptionof the taboo subjectof menstruation
counted againsther: 'The same book with a prostateprobleminsteadof
uterinehaemorrhagingwould have been accepted'(Spirlet,1975). As this
quotation suggests, Cardinal'srebelliousreactionsto the Frenchliterary
establishmentreinforcethe challengeimplicitin the text itself.The troubled
tones of the critics,andthe difficultyof classifyingthe work are a testimony
to the strengthand politicalsignificanceof her writing.

The popular reception of Ernaux and Cardinal

One of the most strikingfeaturesof the receptionof Ernauxand Cardinal
is the very largereadershipswhich theirworks attract.We do not, on the 39
 whole, see the works of Irigarayor Cixous in the best-sellerlists of the
7 mainstreamFrenchpress;this, on the contrary,is very much a featureof
the responseto Cardinaland Ernaux.Withinweeks of its publicationin
January1997 Ernaux'sLa Honte was near the top of the lists in maga-
z zines and newspapersas diverseas Elle, Le Nouvel Observateur,Le Point,
L'Expressand Aujourd'huiLe Parisien. By February,Marie-Francoise
Leclerein Le Point spoke of the book'ssales as an 'astonishingresult',and
by April, 68,000 copies had been sold (Leclere, 1997: 94; Gallimard,
1997). The sales figuresfor some of the earlierworks are even more strik-
ing: to date nearly460,000 copies of La Place (Positions)have been sold
in France,whilst the figurefor Passionsimple (PassionPerfect)is almost
275,000 copies.The significanceof these statisticsis reinforcedby the fact
that particularlysince 1984, each of Ernaux'spublicationshas been fol-
lowed by invitationsto appearon radio and TV, includingthe prestigious
television discussionprogrammeApostrophes(now entitled Bouillon de
Culture)as well as morepopularTV programmes,often aimedat a female
audience.
Similarly,Cardinalis a publiccelebrityin France.Severalof her texts have
achievedbest-sellerstatus while The Wordsto Say It has now sold over
2,500,000 copies world-wideand has beentranslatedinto eighteendiffer-
ent languages.As CarolynA. Durhamhas pointedout, the immensepopu-
larityand enormoussales of The Wordsto Say It place it alongsideBetty
Friedan'sTheFeminineMystique(1963) and Beauvoir'sLe DeuxiemeSexe
(The Second Sex, 1949) 'as one of the most influentialtexts of contem-
porary feminism' (Durham, 1995, viii). Cardinal has also become a
popularfigurein the Frenchmedia;books such as The Key in the Door,
The Wordsto SayIt, and Devotion and Disorder,some of Cardinal'smost
controversialworks, all based on her own life, have been the subjectof
interviewson radio and televisionand in women'smagazinessuch as Elle
(Cardinal,1972, 1975, 1987). She appearedin aroundseventytelevision
programmes between 1963 and 1993, ranging from serious literary
debatessuch as Apostrophes,to light-heartedgame shows such as Ques-
tions pour un Champion.
The mass appealof Cardinal'stexts is reflectedin the vast amountof mail
which she receivesfrom readerswho are keen to relatethe act of reading
to their life-histories.The fact that the readerresponseto Cardinal'stexts
is of interestto journalistsis in itself significant,and it is this secondary
literaturewhich forms the basis of the remarkswhich follow. Although
Cardinalhas produceda numberof impressiveworks since 1975, it is The
Wordsto Say It which still commandsthe greatestpopularresponse.Car-
dinal has explainedthat initially she received200 letters a day, and that
4 she still receives dozens of letters referringto this earlier text (Delay,
1975-6; Boncenne et al., 1982). The specifically feminist content of the z
text seems to be confirmed by the fact that particularly at the time of its o
publication most of the letters received were from women readers.
However, its universal appeal as a story of liberation is highlighted by the a
significant number of responses which the author received from young
male readers mainly after the text's appearance in paperback (Bosselet,
1977).
I
Many readers feel a close affinity with Cardinal and hence use the affec- w
tionate second person singular 'tu' or address her as 'Marie'. Cardinal is 0
praised for her courage and honesty as well as for her perceptiveness and
capacity to convey a 'truth' which strikes a chord with many readers. One
reader confides: 'Marie, I don't know if you will get this letter. Your books z
have overwhelmed me: it's strong, it's good, it's true' (Boncenne et al.,
1982: 24). Another expresses the view that: 'it took courage and talent to z
tell this long story of "the thing", that all-invading madness'. The majority
of readers see Cardinal as a kind of agony aunt in whom they place com-
c
plete trust, divulging their own intimate testimonies and pouring out their
personal problems: 'Marie, I have a slight sexual problem. . .' (Boncenne
et al., 1982: 24). The interaction between analyst and analysand which
was positively evoked in The Words to Say It is re-enacted through the
relationship between author and reader.In many cases readers recount past
histories which are not dissimilar to Cardinal's own, hoping to share in
some of the strength and intelligence which enabled her to work through
her own crisis. For instance, an article in Le Monde gives an illuminating
account of the kind of narrative which the text inspires. In this piece,
entitled 'The Plain Woman', Jane Herve describes her encounter with
Yvette, who is sitting on a bench immersed in The Words to Say It (Herve,
1978). Like the heroine of Cardinal's text, Yvette has experienced a pro-
found sense of social alienation and rejection by her peers and is driven by
'an ardent desire to be loved'. Mistaken as a witch by young children,
heavily built with a long nose and thin lips, Yvette's unfashionable dress
and worn-out shoes testify to her inability to conform to the stringent aes-
thetic norms of French femininity. Again, like the heroine of The Words to
Say It, she has managed to transcend a loveless relationship with her
parents and to realize her autonomous identity through professional
achievement. The content of the letters is repetitive, focusing, like this
article, on the narrator's problems and subsequent salvation. The Bil-
dungsroman structure of Cardinal's narrative is thus transferred to per-
sonal life-histories, with a resulting sense of inspiration and empowerment.
Perhaps most importantly, The Words to Say It seems to have inspired in
its women readers a belief in their ability to bring about change in their
own lives. y 41
 Ernauxalso receivesvery large numbersof lettersfrom male and female
readers,from a range of age-groupsand social class backgrounds(for a
,1 more detaileddiscussion,see Thomas, 1999: ch. 5). The title and subject
matter of the text often has a determiningeffect on the profile of the
readers, and a significant number of letters recount a similar social trajec-
u tory to Ernaux's own, identifying with the emotional costs and conse-
quences which she describes. Although Ernaux's texts do not end on the
1I triumphant note which concludes The Words to Say It, the feeling of
empowerment generated by the recognition of experiences of oppression
is also found in readers' letters. Thus, a woman of working-class origins,
and of Ernaux's generation, who has become a doctor describes Ernaux's
work as crucial in her understanding of herself, and of her feelings of alien-
ation and isolation:

However,it was CleanedOut which affectedme the most, since for the first
time, actually,despite the fact that I read a lot, I saw situationsand feelings
describedwhich I thought I was alone in experiencing,and which weighed
heavilyin my life, and still do.
(E, aged 50; 12/9/88)
Certain texts are particularly powerful for women readers: A Woman's
Story and 'Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit' attracted a high percentage of
letters from women (80 per cent and 60 per cent respectively), perhaps be-
cause of the focus on the mother/daughter relationship which, as Irigaray
has argued, is not widely represented in Western patriarchal culture
(Irigaray, 1989). Of particular importance generally is the notion that
Ernaux has expressed a hitherto unavowed experience, and that, through
reading her, the women concerned have found a voice. Thus, a number of
readers repeat Ernaux's words in order to express their own grief, or antici-
pated loss:
My parentsareveryold, but still alive ... but I know that when they die, I will
also have lost - if I may use your movingphrase- 'the last link' or at least the
strongest'with my world I came from'.
(E, aged45, teacher;8/2/88)
One woman even constructs a brief narrative of her life, based on the title
of Ernaux's third book, A Frozen Woman: 'A woman transfixed (figee) at
twenty, not quite thawed out (degelee) by forty' (E, aged 50; 12/4/88).
As is the case for Cardinal, a striking aspect of Ernaux's letters from
women is the desire to see her as a friend. Some women readers address
her as Annie, and use the familiar 'tu' form; many others invite her - to
dinner, lunch, or even for a holiday. One woman provides an idyllic vision
of a sisterly chat with Ernaux: 'Another, less rational motive: the desire to
J12 talk with you, about life, death, writing, oblivion, whilst striding along
pathsthroughmountains,the thyme-scentedscrublandof the south, or by z
the sea' (F aged 57; 5/3/97). Again like Cardinal,Ernauxbecomesa role- o
model and an inspiration:
z
Thisbook[PassionPerfect]wasmybibleformanymonths,I draggedit about m
It was in my bagandmy memory.Yourbookwas my
withme, everywhere. 3
in
guidinglight mydestructive witha man.Youweremymodel,I
relationship r
admiredyouforbeingableto facethefinalbreak-up. I
(E, aged 26) m

However,there is sometimesa desire to give, as well as receivesupport; V z

Ernaux'sreaders often write angrily in her defence against the critics:
'These reviews [of Passion Perfect]were absolutelydisgraceful,the fact ,
that they werewrittenby men says it all.... They don'tlike truth,and for z
them sexualitydoes not exist in women' (F.,retiredprimaryschoolteacher; m
5/3/92). Although it is only possible here to provide a glimpse of the z
responses to Ernaux's texts, it will be clear from these few examplesthat
a strong sense of gender and/or class-basedsolidarityemergesin these zz
letters. l

In conclusion,it would seem that despitevery great differencesof social

background,and of style and contentin theirwork, Ernauxand Cardinal
currentlyoccupy a similarlyambivalentplace in Frenchculture.They are
both highly popularwriters:the enthusiasmand loyalty of their reader-
ships is resistantto critical opprobriumfrom the literaryestablishment,
and seemsstronglylinkedto each writer'swillingnessto draw on her own
experiencein herwriting.The fact that this is an experienceof oppression,
whetheras a middle-class,Catholicwoman in Cardinal'scase, or in terms
of Ernaux'sworking-classorigins, is importantfor many readers,who
identifywith the culturaland social exclusionsdescribed.Particularlyfor
women readers,in a culturewhere the namingof women's physicaland
sexual experiences leads to accusations of impudeur (shamelessness),
Ernaux'sand Cardinal'stexts representa crucial questioningof gender-
differentiatedconventions.The fact that both writersbreakthe rules and
speakthe unspeakable- in a literaryformwhich is widely comprehensible
and accessible- seemsto give manywomen readersthe sensethat they too
can find the words to expresstheir experience,and that they are entitled
to do so.

Despite their own distrustof Parisianintellectualism,and choice to live

and work on the periphery (albeit more recently in Cardinal'scase),
Ernauxand Cardinalare in fact high-profilefiguresin the Frenchmedia.
The public fascinationwith these writerscan in part be attributedto the
fact that both, in differentways, call into questionconventionaldefinitions
of both the literary,and of femininity.Their use of direct, unadorned 13
 language, and reference to their own personal experience makes them a
still more troubling presence in contemporary French culture. Ironically,
their popularity seems to result in an ambivalent response from the French
literary establishment, whose view of women writers still seems to reflect
z the comment made, sadly, by Beauvoir herself in 1949:
she (the woman writer)bringsinto literaturejust that personalnote which is
expectedof her:she remindsus that she is a woman by a few airs and graces,
a bit of well-chosenpreciousness;thus she will excel in the productionof best-
sellers,but one cannotcount on her to ventureinto unknownterritory.
(Beauvoir,1949: 633)
The dichotomies inherent in this passage, between popularity and intel-
lectual curiosity, and between the personal and literary value, have been
compounded in the anglophone academic world by its fascination with
French theory. Ernaux's discussion of social class, and both writers'
emphasis on communication with a wide audience seem to have excluded
them from the anglophone definition of fashionable French feminisms. The
signs are that this is changing; perhaps in the next century recognition of
difference will not be confined to the academically a la mode.

Notes

LynThomasis SeniorLecturerin Frenchat the Universityof North Londonand

has just completeda book on Ernauxwhich is to be publishedby Bergin 1999 -
AnnieErnaux:An Introductionto the Writerand herAudience.Shealso researches
and writes on contemporaryFrenchand Britishmedia.
EmmaWebb is writing a PhD thesis on the life-writingof Marie Cardinaland
Annie Leclerc.She is a Visiting Lecturerin Frenchat the Universityof North
London.
1 The quotationsand page referencesfor Les Mots pour le dire are fromthe pub-
lishedtranslation(TheWordsto SayIt). All othertranslationsfromFrenchtexts
are the authors'own, and page referencesare to the originalFrenchtexts.
2 In her discussionof Cardinal,CarolynA. Durhamcoins the term 'communi-
cative'literatureto describewritingwhich attemptsto speakmoredirectlyto an
audiencethanthe avant-gardetext, and is moreconcernedwith the depictionof
social reality(Durham,1992).
3 'Jene suis pas sortie de ma nuit' - 'My night is not over'. These were the last
wordswhich Ernauxsaw her motherwrite,in a letterto a friend.The use of the
mother'swords as the title of one of her books is a furtherexampleof Ernaux's
desireto saveher motherand herculturefromoblivion- whetherthroughsocial
A
44
relegation, or illness and death.
 An importantintertextboth to 'Jene suis pas sortiede ma nuit' and A Woman's EZ
Storyis Beauvoir'sUne mort tresdouce.This work also focuseson the mother's 0o
final illness, and the impactof this on the daughter'sown identity,and fear of >
death.
0

4 Forinstance,Le Figarocommentson the returnto the mother'sfinalmonthsand 3

illnessin 'Jene suis pas sortie de ma nuit' that 'what was exorcismhas become >
exhibitionism'(Matignon1997). Whilstfor JeromeGarcinin Le Nouvel Obser- I
vateur,Ernauxhas transformed'this finalsong of love into an obscenedescrip- z

tion of physicaldegradation'(Garcin,1997a). m

5 On the BIDSdatabase,seventy-sevenitemswere listedfor Irigaray,and of these Z

twenty-fivewere substantivearticles,publishedin the US, UK and Australia
(mostof the remainingreferencesto each authorin the BIDSlistingswere book
reviews).In comparison,a similarsearch for Ernauxproduceda list of only |
thirty-fouritems,of which seven were articles,publishedin the US or UK. The r
case of Cixous addsfurtherconfirmation,sincethe BIDSdatabaseprovided134 z
referencesfor this writer,of which thirty-ninewere articlesor books.
6 Ernaux and Cardinalare receivingincreasingattention in FrenchStudies in z
Americaand the UK, both in termsof publishedwork and presencein the cur-
riculum.All of the publicationson Ernauxare in FrenchStudiesjournalsor
books, and many are writtenin French.This is slightlyless the case for Cardi-
nal: two articleswere publishedin an interdisciplinaryand internationallitera-
ture journal,respectively,and a psychoanalyticalreadingof The Wordsto Say
It in a criticaltheoryjournal(Bond1994; Elliot, 1987; Powrie,1989). Cardinal
has also been discussedin generalworks on autobiographyby women (Felski,
1989; Morganet al. (eds) 1991). I
References

Cited works by Marie Cardinal

(1962) Ecoutezla mer, Paris:EditionsJulliard.
(1972) La Cle sur la porte, Paris:EditionsGrassetet Fasquelle.
(1975) Les Mots pour le dire,Paris:EditionsGrassetet Fasquelle,translated1983
as The Wordsto Say It by Pat Goodheart,London:The Women'sPress.
(1977) Autrementdit, Paris:EditionsGrassetet Fasquelle,translated1995 as In
Other Wordsby Amy Cooper,with a forewordby CarolynDurhamand a post-
scriptby AnnieLeclerc,Bloomingtonand Indianapolis:IndianaUniversityPress.
(1987) Les grandsdesordres,Paris:EditionsGrassetet Fasquelle,translated1991
as Devotion and Disorderby KarenMontin, London:The Women'sPress.
(1990) Commesi de rien n'etait,Paris:EditionsGrassetet Fasquelle.
(1993) LesJeudisde Charleset de Lula, Paris:EditionsGrassetet Fasquelle.

45
 Cited works by Annie Ernaux
(1974) Les Armoiresvides, Paris:Gallimard,translated1990 as CleanedOut by
CarolSanders,Illinois:DalkeyArchivePress.
(1981) La Femmegelee, Paris:Gallimard,translated1995 as A FrozenWomanby
Z LindaCoverdale,New York:FourWallsEightWindows(now SevenStoriesPress).
(1984) La Place, Paris:Gallimard,translated1991as Positions by TanyaLeslie,
London:QuartetBooksand 1992, A Man'sPlace,New York:SevenStoriesPress.
(1988) Une femme, Paris:Gallimard,translated1990 as A Woman'sStory by
TanyaLeslie,London:QuartetBooks, and New York:SevenStoriesPress.
(1992) Passion simple, Paris:Gallimard,translated1993 as Passion Perfect by
TanyaLeslie, London:QuartetBooks, and 1993 as SimplePassion, New York:
SevenStoriesPress.
(1996) 'Fragmentsautour de PhilippeV.', L'Infini,56, Winter:25-6, translated
1999 as 'FragmentsaroundPhilippeV.', by LynThomas,in this volume.
(1997a) La Honte, Paris:Gallimard(not translated).
(1997b) 'Jene suis pas sortie de ma nuit', Paris:Gallimard(not translated).

General
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Christian(1982) 'Lettresrequespar les ecrivains'Lire,April:24.
BOND, David (1994) 'MarieCardinal'sCommesi de rien n'etait:languageand
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BOURDIEU,Pierre (1979) Distinction:A Social Critiqueof the Judgementof
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