Alison Rice – författare

Worldwide Women Writers in Paris examines a new literary phenomenon consisting of an unprecedented number of women from around the world who have come to Paris and become authors of written works in French. It takes as its starting point a series of filmed interviews conducted in the French capital, a set of recorded conversations motivated by a desire to pay homage to these discrete voices and images at a moment characterized by impressive diversity. Their individual paths to France and to French are noteworthy, and these authors of different generations and varying places of origin emphasize their singularity. However, the juxtaposition of their reflections reveals that many have faced similar difficulties when learning the French language, adapting to life in France, and many have encountered forms of prejudice in the publishing world related to their ethnicity or gender. These challenges have led them, each in an idiosyncratic manner, to tackle tough topics in their work and to respond to adversity by finding effective creative expressions. Taken together, the innovations and interventions in oral and written form of these authors collectively contribute to significant change in the specialized score that is the Parisian literary landscape: Hélène Cixous (Algeria); Zahia Rahmani (Algeria); Leïla Sebbar (Algeria); Bessora (Belgium); Julia Kristeva (Bulgaria); Pia Petersen (Denmark); Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe); Eva Almassy (Hungary); Shumona Sinha (India); Chahdortt Djavann (Iran); Yumiko Seki (Japan); Evelyne Accad (Lebanon); Etel Adnan (Lebanon); Nathacha Appanah (Mauritius); Brina Svit (Slovenia); Eun-Ja Kang (South Korea); Anna Moï (Vietnam).

Time Signatures engages in a close study of the autobiographical writings of three contemporary Francophone writers from the Maghreb: Assia Djebar, Hélène Cixous, and Abdelkébir Khatibi. Alluding to music not only as a "theme" pulsing throughout these writers' works, but also as a means of comprehending their unique, improvisational writing styles, Alison Rice offers readers a new and beautifully constructed way of reading these authors' texts by demonstrating that the form adopted to address topics of concern is as significant as the content itself. The voice of Jacques Derrida intermingles with the timbres of these three writers in fruitful contrapuntal passages, serving as a source of inspiration for conceptualizing language and communicating the self in an unprecedented manner. Time Signatures demonstrates that these individuals write the "self" in French in ways influenced by sensitivities acquired during their early experiences in a multicultural, multilingual "colonial" environment in which their ears were trained, and their minds tuned, for translations to come.

This publication benefited from the support of the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame.This collective volume concentrates on the concept of transposition, exploring its potential as a lens through which to examine recent Francophone literary, cinematic, theatrical, musical, and artistic creations that reveal multilingual and multicultural realities. The chapters are composed by leading scholars in French and Francophone Studies who engage in interdisciplinary reflections on the ways transcontinental movement has influenced diverse genres. It begins with the premise that an attentiveness to migration has inspired writers, artists, filmmakers, playwrights and musicians to engage in new forms of translation in their work. Their own diverse backgrounds combine with their awareness of the itineraries of others to have an impact on the innovative languages that emerge in their creative production. These contemporary figures realize that migratory actualities must be transposed into different linguistic and cultural contexts in order to be legible and audible, in order to be perceptible—either for the reader, the listener, or the viewer. The novels, films, plays, works of art and musical pieces that exemplify such transpositions adopt inventive elements that push the limits of formal composition in French. This work is therefore often inspiring as it points in evocative ways toward fluid influences and a plurality of interactions that render impossible any static conception of being or belonging.