French Literature Reviews - 2026
Andrea Oberhuber, Faire œuvre à deux. Le Livre surréaliste au féminin
Art and Visual Culture
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 created between 1930 and 1975 in pursuit of the Surrealist ideal of collaborative creation, typically initiated by a female writer? Representing a genuine editorial paradigm shift, the Surrealist book—a complete artistic object in its own right rooted in co-authored writing—rarely has a single author. It deploys highly variable text-image relationships, inviting a dual reading that bridges the written and the visual.
This volume aims to fill a significant research gap by exploring a corpus long neglected by literary and art criticism. Ten emblematic case studies are analyzed through the lens of collaborative practices ("female," "mixed," or "creative duality") to address a compelling question: what does a female avant-garde aesthetic look like, and how did a community of female authors and artists organically emerge through the book as a space of encounter and a crucible for shared creation?
Contents
Collaborative Practice and Intermedial Dialogue: The Book as Medium
Part I Female Collaboration
A Shared Creation: Aveux non avenus by Claude Cahun and Moore
Lise Deharme and Her Artist Collaborators: Le Cœur de Pic and Le Poids d'un oiseau
Part II Mixed Collaboration
Partners in Life and Art: La Maison de la Peur and La Dame ovale by Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst
Oiseaux en péril, or the Celebration of the Creative Couple Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst
Part III Creative Duality
The Magical Union of Anagram and Drawing: Hexentexte and Oracles et spectacles by Unica Zürn
Dons des féminines by Valentine Penrose: A Tale of "Mad Love"
The Artist and Her Double: Le Livre de Leonor Fini
The Female Surrealist Book: Teratological Entity or Janus Head?
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Andrea Oberhuber is Professor of Literature at the Université de Montréal, where she teaches women's writing (19th–21st centuries), photoliterature, and literary and artistic avant-gardes. She is co-director and editor-in-chief of the digital journal MuseMedusa, which specializes in research-creation. She has published numerous monographs (Chanson(s) de femme(s); Courre-ciel; Corps de papier. Résonances) and edited several journal special issues and collective volumes. Her current team-based research project focuses on the ambivalent figures of care in the French novel from 1870 to 1945. She is also co-researcher on a research-creation project with Catherine Mavrikakis exploring literature as a paradoxical space of care through representations of the female criminal.
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Rooted in the historical avant-garde, the surrealist movement placed immense value on collective creation, dialogue across artistic mediums, and the blurring of boundaries between text and image. By examining rare hybrid works by figures such as Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, and Unica Zürn, this study illuminates an overlooked dimension of modernist publishing. These collaborative books challenge traditional notions of single authorship, offering instead a dual reading experience where visual arts and literature merge into a unified aesthetic object. The volume provides essential insights into how women shaped and expanded the boundaries of surrealist expression.
Scholars of modern literature, feminist art history, and avant-garde studies will find this volume a valuable resource for understanding the mechanics of creative duality. Andrea Oberhuber carefully unpacks the dynamics of artistic partnerships and female networks, addressing fundamental questions about gender and collective creation in twentieth-century culture. By bringing critical attention to a neglected corpus, the book serves as both a historical recovery project and an invitation to rethink the collaborative practices that defined some of the most innovative artistic circles of the modern era.