Framing Narratives of the Second World War and Occupation in France, 1939-2009: New Readings

The Second World War and the German Occupation continue to be a major focal point in French culture and society, with new and sometimes controversial titles appearing every year - Irène Némirovsky's Suite française and Jonathan Littell's Les Bienveillantes, both rapidly translated into English, offer just two examples of this significant phenomenon in the last decade. There has, however, been no major critical reappraisal of narratives of war and occupation in France for over two decades. Gathering within one volume studies of genres, visual cultures, chronology, narrative theory, and a wealth of narratives in fiction and film, Framing narratives of the Second World War and occupation in France 1939-2009 brings together an internationally distinguished group of contributors and offers an authoritative overview of criticism on war and occupation narratives in French, a redefinition of the canon of texts and films to be studied, and a vibrant demonstration of the richness of the work in this area. Given that literary, autobiographical and visual representations have played, and continue to play, an active role in shaping understanding of this complex and important period of French history, the volume focuses upon three main areas: the narrative construction of war and occupation, the importance of the expectations and knowledge of the public in shaping these narratives, and the ways they have evolved over the past seven decades. Edited by two leading specialists in the field, this book includes contributions by William Cloonan, Richard J Golsan, Leah Hewitt, Colin Nettelbeck and Gisèle Sapiro.