Writing Otherwise

Essentially a comparative and contrastive analysis, Writing Otherwise examines the prose of five French women authors: Liliane Atlan, Marguerite Duras, Liliane Giraudon, Marie Redonnet, and Monique Wittig. Through close readings of texts published after 1985, this book explores the broad concerns and preoccupations infusing the ontological enterprise that is ecriture. While maintaining a sensitivity to the diversity of styles and themes, as well as the unique qualities of the poetic voice evident in the five texts under consideration, this study seeks to highlight, in very general terms, what is common to them. The intertextual ground that informs the works, the construction of subjectivity, and the ambivalence and tension inherent to the practice writing constitute significant and important areas of convergence. These features form the ground of each chapter, while specific areas of divergence complete the discussion of individual aesthetics. Inspired by feminist literary theory, Writing Otherwise is also concerned with how these five women writers negotiate their relationship to writing.