Nomadismes des romancières contemporaines de langue française (review)

This collection of essays provides a wide-ranging study of geographical and identificatory transgressions in the work of contemporary French women writers. The book is divided into four sections, each of which investigates different areas of literary nomadisms which may be understood as strategies for undermining fixed notions of identity. In the first section, Dominique Combe's essay examines the work of Régine Robin, who introduced literary multiculturalism to Québec in the early 1990s. Christine Détrez's chapter highlights the constraints faced by Algerian women writers whose literary nomadism represents both self-expression and cultural transgression. The renewal of the detective genre in the work of Fred Vargas is the subject of the chapter by Sévérine Gaspari, who shows how Vargas transgresses gender boundaries by manipulating the genre's stereotyped conventions. Delphine Naudier explores the status of women writers from the nineteenth century to the present, demonstrating how women's writing has become increasingly androgynous. The second part of the book opens with Anne Simon's chapter on Annie Ernaux. Simon contends that Ernaux, like Proust, highlights the ephemeral nature of 'self' as a constantly changing process of momentary experiences and that the fluidity of her writing reflects this sense of identity as a 'je traversé' (p. 73). Diana Holmes argues that Nancy Huston's fiction questions the anti-narrative modes of writing inaugurated by the 'nouveau roman' and later reinforced by feminists who opposed the patriarchal underpinnings of classic realist fiction. Anne Mairesse analyses the displacement of gender identities through identification with the male heronarrator in the work of Anne Garréta and Lydie Salvayre, while Eliane DalMolin's chapter examines how Ernaux, Salvayre and Nothomb exhibit the complexity of their experience through what she calls 'une rhétorique du spectacle' (p. 104). The third section of the book begins with Audrey Lasserre's study of Leslie Kaplan who identifies categories as a fundamental element of totalitarianism and whose 'pensée nomade' (p. 124) reflects her rejection of all categories. Armelle Le Bras-Chopard argues that Catherine Millet's sexualised discourse rehearses well-worn stereotypes of women. The work of Marie NDiaye is the subject of Shirley Jordan's chapter, which explores the significance of nomadism in NDiaye as an experience of exile, loss and exclusion. Simon Kemp looks at the impact of nomadic displacements on the identities of Marie Darrieussecq's characters, highlighting their ambivalent reactions of both attraction and revulsion vis-à-vis their homeland. Aline Bergé-Joonekindt examines the 'history of the forgotten' (p. 179) in the work of Zahia Rahmani, while André Benhaïm's analysis of displacement in Assia Djebar focuses on the image of 'la marche' as a metaphor of both textual and cultural movement. The closing chapter is Mireille Calle-Gruber's study of Andrée Chedid's Les Marches de sable in which nomadism becomes a search for both physical and spiritual nourishment. This volume shows a remarkable diversity of contributions while maintaining an excellent level of clarity and precision throughout. It makes an important contribution to the field of French women's writing and will be an invaluable resource for both students and researchers.