French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Gefen, Inventing a Life: The Literary Manufacture of the Individual
Novel and Narrative Prose
Review published in Acta Fabula (February 2017, vol. 18, no. 2): Inventer une vie ; réinventer la littérature by Olivier Gasnot.
Alexandre Gefen, Inventer une vie. La fabrique littéraire de l’individu
foreword by Pierre Michon
Brussels: Les Impressions Nouvelles, coll. "Réflexions faites", 2015.
304 p.
Price: €20.
EAN 9782874492471.
An excerpt from the essay (attachment) can be read at the bottom of this announcement. Chapter I is available to explore in Fabula's Workshop of Literary Theory.
Overview:
Published in 1895, Marcel Schwob’s Vies Imaginaires (Imaginary Lives) sealed the birth of a literary genre: biographical fiction. Its contemporary descendants have been flooding our bookstores ever since Pierre Michon’s Vies minuscules (Small Lives), along with the narratives of Pascal Quignard, Jean Echenoz, and Patrick Modiano. Eccentric or melancholic, ardent or ironic, poetic or whimsical, novelistic or fragmentary, these lives reflect a desire to portray the originality of human beings and customs with the freedom inherent to literature. They express our modern passion for the minores or counter-legends of the illustrious, our fascination with the sanctity of simple hearts, or simply our poetic nostalgia for tales and hagiographies. As a literary art of memory, these narratives resonate both with the culture of transmission so central to our civilization and with our pride in differences and need for secrets. Dreamed or reinvented by writers, they produce a distinctly literary mythography grounded in what M. Schwob called the modern sentiment of the particular and the inimitable: on the margins of grand History, they enrich our lives with possibilities.
This essay invites readers on a journey through these imaginary lives—the secret thread of our literary history and a precious laboratory for our modern identities—while offering a reflection on biofiction, a genre that has become central to French literature yet has never been studied as such.
Alexandre Gefen is a literary critic and researcher at the Center for the Study of French Language and Literature (CNRS-Paris 4 University). His research focuses on literary theory, with a particular application to contemporary French literature.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword: Pithecanthropus, by Pierre Michon
INTRODUCTION
I. Jean de La Fontaine, Above the Flow of Time
II. Louis Lambert, Child Prodigy
III. Rancé, A World Apart
IV. The King of Bicêtre
V. Jeanne Le Perthuis des Vauds
VI. The Secret of Bouvard and Pécuchet
VII. Félicité, A Simple Heart?
VIII. Paolo Uccello, Painter
IX. Monsieur Barnabooth
X. Croniamantal, The Greatest of Poets
XI. Life and Death of the Unknown Soldier
XII. Saint Lydwina, A Life Lived in the Dual
XIII. Paulina Pandolfini, Born in Milan
XIV. Elagabalus, From Coachman to Coachman
XV. Louis Salavin and Fate
XVI. Pierre Mercadier, Biographer
XVII. Little Gustave Flaubert
XVIII. Professor Frœppel
XIX. What Comes to Me from the Life of Sade
XX. Pierre Rivière, Having Slit the Throats of His Mother, Sister, and Brother
XXI. Attalus Priscus, Emperor of the West
XXII. Dora Bruder, Child Without Identity
XXIII. Life of Myriam C.
XXIV. Monsieur Hamon
XXV. Percival Bartlebooth, 1900-1975
XXVI. Louis-René des Forêts, Novel
XXVII. I Knew Aesop Well
XXVIII. Gregor, Putting On His Socks
XXIX. Alexandre Yersin, A Fine Eccentric
XXX. Emily Dickinson, Without Leaving Home
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XXXI. Anna Nicole Smith, Plural
XXXII. The Final Years of Jed Martin's Life
XXXIII. If Only Ten Lives
NOTES
FURTHER READING
Alexandre Gefen explores the evolution and significance of biofiction, tracing its modern roots to Marcel Schwobs Vies imaginaires and examining how contemporary writers reinvent biography as an art of memory. By focusing on marginal figures, minor lives, and counter-legends, this study maps a vital tradition within French narrative prose. It offers a thorough investigation into how literature captures the particular and the inimitable, establishing biofiction as a central yet previously unexamined genre that bridges storytelling, cultural transmission, and the modern exploration of individual identity on the fringes of grand history.
This insightful essay will particularly appeal to readers, scholars, and students interested in contemporary French literature, literary theory, and the intersections between fiction and biography. It provides valuable critical tools for understanding the enduring fascination with lives both illustrious and obscure, shedding light on the narrative strategies used by authors to shape human destinies. By questioning how literature constructs our sense of self and preserves lost or invented histories, the book serves as an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand the deep connections binding imagination, memory, and personhood.