French Literature Reviews - 2026
V. Dusaillant-Fernandes, Écrire les blessures de l’enfance. Inscription du trauma dans la littérature contemporaine au féminin
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Écrire les blessures de l’enfance. Inscription du trauma dans la littérature contemporaine au féminin,
Valérie Dusaillant-Fernandes
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2020, 2020.
EAN13 : 9781433172403.
At the crossroads of literature, discourse analysis, psychoanalysis, psychology, and trauma theory, Écrire les blessures de l’enfance. Inscription du trauma dans la littérature contemporaine au féminin explores in detail the textual inscription of childhood trauma through the study of autobiographical and autofictional works by acclaimed female authors such as Chantal Chawaf, Chloé Delaume, Marguerite Duras, and Marie Nimier, alongside emerging voices like Béatrice de Jurquet and Colette Mainguy. What textual strategies and literary devices are deployed to bear witness to the obsessive nature of trauma? Does the act of writing and recalling memories enable female writers to break free from the mental impasse caused by a traumatic event? This book examines various representations of trauma, offering fresh perspectives, answers, and reflections on this dimension of women's writing, which proves to be a fertile space for unveiling stories of shame, guilt, and violence.
Table of Contents
Abbreviations
Introduction: Trauma, Writing, and Childhood Narrative
Part One: Emotional Deprivation, Abuse, and Lethal Violence
Part Two: The Scars of Incest
Part Three: The Loss of One or Both Parents
Conclusion
Valérie Dusaillant-Fernandes holds a Ph.D. in French Studies from the University of Toronto. She is an Associate Professor of 20th- and 21st-Century French and Francophone Literatures at the University of Waterloo, Canada. She co-edited and published a collective volume entitled La répétition dans les textes littéraires du Moyen Âge à nos jours (Peter Lang, 2020).
The intersection of literature, psychoanalysis, and trauma theory has long provided a framework for examining how severe emotional distress finds expression in art. Scholars working within this interdisciplinary tradition often investigate the ways narrative structures attempt to capture experiences that resist straightforward representation. By placing autobiographical and autofictional texts at the center of inquiry, this book connects with broader scholarly discussions surrounding memory, identity, and the textual transmission of difficult or painful personal histories within twentieth- and twenty-first-century French literature.
Readers interested in contemporary French literature, women writing, and trauma studies may find it relevant. The volume addresses the textual inscription of childhood trauma through the study of works by acclaimed female authors and emerging voices. It examines representations of emotional deprivation, abuse, lethal violence, incest, and parental loss, exploring how the act of writing engages with the obsessive nature of trauma and the mental impasse it causes.