Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures by Eric Touya de Marenne (review)

The first anthology of its kind, Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures by Eric Touya de Marenne spans a vast geo-cultural range. Touya de Marenne innovatively brings together women writers from North Africa, West Africa, North America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Pacific, and the Near East. The selected writers are well-studied and, in some cases, canonical voices of francophone literatures. While such a choice may raise some legitimate questions about the necessity of this anthology, the contribution of the volume rather lies in its critical account of this literary tradition. A set of important questions frame Francophone Women Writers: “How do we take into account cultural and historical differences when we write/read about women in the ‘global’ francophone world? Are there more legitimate voices to hear than others? What should be the place of postcolonial and feminist theories in reading and interpreting the literary works of francophone women authors?” (1). The author does not provide definitive answers to these questions. Instead the questions appear to work as signposts for his critical engagement with the category of francophone women writers.

The five chapters of the book represent the overarching interpretive frameworks within which the author reads francophone women writers, with each being carefully assessed in the introduction. The review of these frameworks offers a useful inventory of key critical questions and debates in the study of francophone women writers. Chapter one, on “Feminisms: Resistance and Heteroglossia,” surveys relevant themes in the works of Mariama Bâ, Nina Bouraoui, Joyce Mansour, Anne Hébert, and Amélie Nothomb. The selected excerpts from the texts of these writers foreground different models of feminist resistance to patriarchal systems. Mariama Bâ and Nina Bouraoui focus on the creation of new self-affirming spaces for women, Joyce Mansour explores the free expression of sexual desire, and Amélie Nothomb and Anne Hébert privilege the movement from subjugation to subjectivity. In chapter 2, “Postcolonialisms: Politics and Power,” Touya de Marenne pays attention to the various ways in which francophone women writers engage and rewrite the postcolonial experience from a woman’s standpoint. Excerpts from Assia Djebar, Déwé Gorode, Werewere-Liking Gnepo, Marie-Célie Agnant, and Marie Chauvet show the writers’ shared concerns with the legacies of colonialism, the deferred emancipation of women in postcolonial societies, and the subsequent disenchantment of postcolonial women. In chapter 3, “Cross-Cultures: Nomadic Identities,” the author brings together Maryse Condé, Mayotte Capécia, Gabrielle Roy, Kim Lefèvre, and Isabelle Eberhardt around questions of hybridity, border crossings, and the identitary predicaments of subjects caught in-between spaces. Chapter 4, “Counter-Discourses: Alterity and the Family Order,” showcases various forms of resistance against the family order. The excerpts in this chapter are from the works of Calixthe Beyala, Ying Chen, Ananda Devi, Marie N’Diaye, and Andrée Chedid. Chapter 5, “Beyond Borders: Transcendent Spaces,” addresses the quest for new feminist paradigms and languages of representation and selected writers include Véronique Tadjo, Corinna Bille, Gabrielle Roy, and Venus Khoury-Ghata.

Francophone Women Writers: Feminisms, Postcolonialisms, Cross-Cultures presents a compelling selection of texts. The juxtaposition of authors who had never been brought together before will be of interest to scholars and teachers of francophone literatures, while the biographical notes and individual and general bibliographies make this anthology an important resource book for students of francophone women’s writings.