French Literature Reviews - 2026
Yvan Jablonka, The Third Continent, or the Literature of the Real
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics
Review published in Acta Fabula (September 2024, vol. 25, no. 8): “Conquering New Territories” by Sophie Feller
Since the 19th century, our intellectual map has been dominated by two continents: fictional literature and scholarly research. Yet this division of the world is increasingly being challenged.
Narratives, testimonies, biographies, reports, diaries: all these writings of the real comprise another literature, driven by an urge to understand. They are nourished and structured by the social sciences, which also possess a literary potential. For research—whenever it analyzes its own standpoint, uses the first person, and dares to write—is an inquiry into its own forms.
When literature encounters the social sciences, a third continent emerges: lands where investigations flourish, where our history is understood, where research reconciles with creation, and where a literature of truth is invented, distinct from both fictional literature and grey literature. By embarking on its exploration, this book offers a new cartography of knowledge and writing.
Read an excerpt from the book…
Writer and publisher, Ivan Jablonka is a professor of history at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord and a member of the IUF. His books, including Histoire des grands-parents que je n’ai pas eus (2012), Laëtitia (2016), Des hommes justes (2019), and Goldman (2023), have been translated into fifteen languages.
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An article on this work can be read on en-attendant-nadeau.fr:
"The Spoken and Written Words of Ivan Jablonka", by Philippe Artières (online February 17, 2024).
Even as his essay on the Goldman phenomenon, published in August, is still on bookstore tables, here is a new book by Ivan Jablonka: a collection of short texts and interventions entitled (modestly) The Third Continent and subtitled (more modestly still) Or the Literature of the Real. It is an opportunity to take stock of the trajectory of this singular figure in French publishing.
The distinction between imaginative fiction and academic research has long defined the boundaries of intellectual production in the humanities. This traditional binary often separates the aesthetic concerns of novelists from the empirical rigor of historians and sociologists. However, the emergence of hybrid forms—such as personal testimonies, investigative reports, and biographical narratives—suggests a shift in how knowledge is constructed and communicated. By integrating the methods of the social sciences with the stylistic techniques of creative prose, these works seek to document historical and social realities while maintaining a focus on literary form and the authorial voice.
Ivan Jablonka’s The Third Continent explores a space he characterizes as a third continent distinct from both purely fictional narratives and specialized academic writing. This territory is defined by an inquiry into the forms of research itself, particularly when scholars adopt the first person or reflect on their own analytical standpoint. By situating his analysis within this evolving landscape, the book maps the intersection where historical investigation reconciles with creative expression. Readers interested in the contemporary evolution of non-fiction and the methodological intersections between history and literature may find this exploration of the literature of the real relevant.