Claire Gorrara - Böcker

The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture offers a lively introduction to the post-war French roman noir from a cultural studies perspective. A populist and widely disseminated genre, the French roman noir has suffered from a reputation as a minor genre with its roots in American popular culture. In this study, Claire Gorrara challenges such preconceptions and examines how selected writers have appropriated the roman noir as a critical response to formative concerns and debates in post-war French society. Starting with the first truly French roman noir, Léo Malet's 120 rue de la gare (1943) and concluding with Maud Tabachnik's feminist thriller Un été pourri (1994), Gorrara analyses both texts and film in relation to their specific historical and cultural context. From the heritage of the Second World War and France's wars of decolonisation to the rise of consumer culture and questions of gender and sexual equality, the roman noir operates in dialogue with its times, mediating social change and transformation with stories of crime, transgression, and marginality. All the novelists studied were published initially in popular collections, such as the Série noire, but they have been chosen for the innovation of their work and the exciting ways in which they resist tired conventions and offer new ways of representing social reality. One of the first English-language studies of this popular genre, The Roman Noir in Post-War French Culture offers much more than close readings of these fascinating texts; it demonstrates the important contribution of the roman noir to the cultural histories of post-war France.

This study examines French women's writing and representations of the Occupation in post-'68 France. The author looks at the work of 'The Women Resisters', those women who were adult resisters during the war, and 'The Daughters of the Occupation', those who were born during or after the war period. The main contention of the study is that the older generation's nascent awareness of how gender informs political activism is reworked into explicitly feminist representations of wartime France by younger women writers.

This book is one of the first English-language studies to chart the development of crime fiction in French from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. It analyses the distinctive features of a French-language tradition and introduces readers to a rich and varied body of work. Each chapter examines a specific period, movement or group of writers, as well as engaging with wider debates on the place of crime fiction within contemporary French and European culture. From early twentieth-century pioneers, such as Gaston Leroux and Maurice Leblanc, to the phenomenal success of Georges Simenon, from May 68 to the gender politics of crime fiction and postmodern reinventions, this collection approaches crime fiction in an interdisciplinary manner, alive to the innovative and often critically informed perspective it provides on French society and culture. The book also includes short extracts in English translation and an extensive bibliography of critical material for further reading. Such resources are aimed at encouraging the reader to gain a greater appreciation and understanding of this potent and formidable narrative of modern times.

This study explores France’s preoccupation with memories of the Second World War through an examination of popular culture and one of its more enduring forms, crime fiction. It examines what such popular narratives have to tell us about past and present perceptions of the war years in France and how they relate to post-war debates over memory, culture and national identity.Starting with narratives of the Resistance in the late 1940s and concluding with contemporary crime fiction for younger readers, Gorrara examines popular memories of the Second World War in dialogue with the changing social, cultural and political contexts of remembrance in post-war France. From memories of the persecution of Jews and French collaboration to the legacies of the concentration camps and the figure of the survivor-witness, all the crime novels discussed grapple with the challenges of what it means to live in the shadow of such a past for generations past, present and future.

This study explores France’s preoccupation with memories of the Second World War through an examination of popular culture and one of its more enduring forms: crime fiction. It examines what such popular narratives have to tell us about past and present perceptions of the war years in France and how they relate to post-war debates over memory, culture and national identity.Starting with narratives of the Resistance in the late 1940s and concluding with contemporary crime fiction for younger readers, Gorrara examines popular memories of the Second World War in dialogue with the changing social, cultural and political contexts of remembrance in post-war France. From memories of the persecution of Jews and French collaboration to the legacies of the concentration camps and the figure of the survivor-witness, all the crime novels discussed grapple with the challenges of what it means to live in the shadow of such a past for generations past, present and future.

This study examines French women's writing and representations of the Occupation in post-'68 France. The author looks at the work of 'The Women Resisters', those women who were adult resisters during the war, and 'The Daughters of the Occupation', those who were born during or after the war period.

During the fifty years since the end of hostilities, European literary memories of the war have undergone considerable change, influenced by the personal experiences of writers as well as changing political, social, and cultural factors. This volume examines changing ways of remembering the war in the literatures of France, Germany, and Italy; changes in the subject of memory, and in the relations between fiction, autobiography, and documentary, with the focus being on the extent to which shared European memories of the war have been constructed.