Books in the Berg French Studies series

Well over dozens of members of the so-called Beur generation have published narrative works. They include Mehdi Charef, Azouz Begag and Farida Belghoul. This study combines careful analysis of the formal structures with the authors and extensive access to unpublished writings.

The Liberation of France from Nazi Occupation continues to reverberate in the post-war politics and culture of France. This book situates the Liberation in the broadest possible context of image and event - extending to questions of memory and analogy, and incorporating subtle layers of ambiguity.

This study examines Courtade as private person, public persona, political commentator and artist, analyzing his life and work. It discusses his contribution to French intellectual life and his responses to events in French history including the Occupation, the Resistance and the Cold War period.

It has long been assumed that France was dominated by the political left-wing and by Existentialism throughout the 1940s and 1950s. This book re-evaluates the impact of the vigorous and unrepentant right-wing cultural and literary movement during the post-war period.

Presents a comprehensive overview of African writing in the Francophone literary world. This title explores the work of important classic and contemporary African writers from the 1950s onwards. It provides a variety of theoretically sophisticated analyses of Francophone writing.

An analysis of the presentation of social reality in France during the final years of the ancien regime and the Revolution.

Examines aspects of Mauriac's work and career that have been unduly neglected and suggests new critical approaches.

Using extensive interviews, this study explores the events and experiences that led a small minority of French people to reject colonialism during the Algerian war of 1954 to 1962. It focuses on the importance of political allegiances and ideologies, and the motives for resisting them.

The Liberation of France from Nazi Occupation continues to reverberate in the post-war politics and culture of France. This book situates the Liberation in the broadest possible context of image and event - extending to questions of memory and analogy, and incorporating subtle layers of ambiguity.

Responds to the explosion of gay and lesbian creativity on modern-day France. This book seeks to open up 'homotextualities,' understood as constructions and deconstructions of both homosexuality and its environments. It provides an assessment of this approach when dealing with a tradition notoriously discreet about the concept of a gay writer.

A study which explores love and sexuality depicted in the works of six French women writers: Rachilde, Colette, Leduc, Wittig, Cixous and Duras. Feminist critics have argued that the motifs of erotic fiction had been governed by the unconscious prejudices of a patriarchal order.

This collection of essays attempts to show the variety of contemporary French novelists. It is written with the non-specialist reader in mind and includes writers such as Marguerite Duras, Michel Tournier, Philippe Sollers, Marie-Claire Blais, Augustin Gomez Arcos and Patrick Modiano.

There has been an explosion of interest in Francophone studies, as postcolonial and diaspora literatures more generally have gained recognition both within and outside the academy. The number of Francophone Caribbean women writers has increased, and the contributors explore this trend.

The "fait divers" are a set of tales which have inspired French writers and intellectuals, and are often the basis for fictional characters. This book examines this creative relationship.

As France's oldest team sport, rugby football has throughout its 125-year history reflected major changes in French society. This book analyzes the complex variety of motives which have led the French to adopt and remake this unlikely British sport in their own image.

Examines the French preoccupation with la mode retro, the renewal of interest in, and re-evaluation of, the Nazi occupation of France.

Introduces the reader to Victor Serge's life and extraordinary novels, locating them amidst debates about revolution, communism, anarchism, literature and representation, and in comparison with his contemporaries. This study demonstrates that the voice of Serge is unified by a notion of dissent - an active dissent far removed from quietism.

Responds to the explosion of gay and lesbian creativity on modern-day France. This book seeks to open up 'homotextualities,' understood as constructions and deconstructions of both homosexuality and its environments. It provides an assessment of this approach when dealing with a tradition notoriously discreet about the concept of a gay writer.

Presents a comprehensive overview of African writing in the Francophone literary world. This title explores the work of important classic and contemporary African writers from the 1950s onwards. It provides a variety of theoretically sophisticated analyses of Francophone writing.

Deals with the attitudes and activities of Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, in France during the Vichy regime and under the German yoke. Halls shows how Christians reacted to Marshal Petain and the Laval government, as well as to the Allies, the Germans, the Resistance and the Vatican.

A study of women's writing in francophone sub-Saharan Africa. Considering questions of genre and ideology, it highlights the tension between the individualistic act of writing and the collective tradition of African society - a tension which emerges as the key to each of the texts is discussed.

This study considers contemporary policies for the arts in France and the cultural and political issues they have raised. In particular, the author focuses on the seminal Mitterand years, as well as the various influences which marked them.

Investigates the exciting and innovative segmentation of the French music scene and the debates it has spawned. From an analysis of the chanson as national myth, to pop, rap, techno and the State, this book aims to make sense of the complexity behind the history of French popular music and its relation to 'authentic' cultural identity.

As a wave of open misogyny swept through French literature and society, a new generation of professional women writers took up pen to redress the situation. This book analyzes and challenges the way in which these women writers have been marginalized and offers reappraisals of their thematically and aesthetically innovative works.