French Literature Reviews - 2026
Andrea Oberhuber, Faire œuvre à deux. Le livre surréaliste au féminin (rééd.)
Art and Visual Culture
Review published on Acta Fabula (February 2026, vol. 27, no. 2) as part of the critical dossier Surréalisme(s): Le surréalisme en partage : autour de quelques désaffilié·es, by Aurore Turbiau
Who today is familiar with Aveux non avenus, Dons des féminines, Hexentexte, La Dame ovale, La Maison de la Peur, Le Cœur de Pic, Le Livre de Leonor Fini, Le Poids d’un oiseau, Oiseaux en péril, or Oracles et spectacles—all hybrid works produced between 1930 and 1975 following the surrealist ideal of collaborative labor, initiated by a female writer? Representing a genuine editorial paradigm shift, the surrealist book—a unique object in its own right, rooted in four-handed writing—almost never has a single author. It deploys highly variable text-image relationships and invites a reciprocal reading between the written and the pictorial.
This volume aims to fill a research gap by examining a corpus unjustly neglected by literary and artistic criticism. Ten emblematic case studies are analyzed regarding their modes of collaboration (« female », « mixed », or « creative duality ») to answer the following question: what becomes of a female avant-garde aesthetic, of a community of women writers and artists that formed almost in spite of itself through the book as a meeting space and crucible of sharing?
Read the introduction to the book:
Collaborative Approach and Intermedial Dialogue: The Book as Medium
Andrea Oberhuber is a professor of literature at the Université de Montréal, where she teaches women's writing (19th–21st centuries), photoliterature, and literary and artistic avant-gardes.
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Rooted in the historical avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, surrealism placed special emphasis on collective creation, dialogue across artistic mediums, and the blurring of boundaries between text and image. The surrealist book emerged as a distinct collaborative object where writers and visual artists worked in tandem. Yet, the specific contributions of female practitioners within these collaborative networks have long remained overlooked by traditional literary and art history. This reissued volume examines how women navigated, shaped, and sometimes subverted surrealist paradigms through joint artistic ventures.
By analyzing ten emblematic case studies, the book provides valuable insight for scholars of modern literature, feminist art history, and intermedial studies. It addresses central questions regarding avant-garde aesthetics, gendered authorship, and the mechanics of artistic partnership. Readers interested in the intersection of poetry, visual arts, and Francophone cultural history will find this study an essential resource for rethinking the collective dynamics of the surrealist movement beyond its canonical figures.