- Chantal Chawaf
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Chantal Chawaf in March 2010
Chantal Chawaf (born 1943) is a French writer.
She was born in Paris, during the World War II. During her childhood, she studied art at l'Ecole du Louvre and literature. She travelled and lived for some years in Europe, in the Middle East and North America. In 1974, she started publishing at the Editions des Femmes,[1] created in relation to the MLF (Mouvement de Liberation des Femmes) by the leading French feminist Antoinette Fouque. Chawaf’s first text, Retable. la rêverie, started what critics called "Écriture féminine".[2] Books which also belong to this movement are; Cercoeur (1975) and Maternité (1979).
In her books, Chawaf explores the theme of a mother-daughter relationship and attempts to realize the potential of words to free the female unconscious, to de-intellectualize her body and give voice to an inner experience.[3] Chantal Chawaf work on birth and life giving leads in her last books to an ecocriticsm of the contemporary society.[4]
She has travelled frequently in the United States where her work is translated and studied in universities.[5]
She is the author of many novels, one play and two essays, and is editor at a French publisher.
Contents
Bibliography
- Retable. La rêverie, 1974, Editions des femmes
- Cercœur, 1975, Mercure de France
- Chair chaude (théâtre, essay), 1976, Mercure de France
- Blé de semence, 1976, Mercure de France
- Le Soleil et la Terre, 1977, Editions Jean-Jacques Pauvert
- Rougeâtre, 1978, Editions Jean-Jacques Pauvert
- Maternité, 1979, Editions Stock
- Landes, 1980, Editions Stock
- Crépusculaires, 1981, Editions Ramsay
- Les Surfaces de l'orage, 1982, Editions Ramsay
- La Vallée incarnate, 1984, Editions Flammarion
- Elwina, le roman fée, 1985, Editions Flammarion
- Fées de toujours (with Jinane Chawaf), 1987, Editions Plon
- L'intérieur des heures, 1987, Editions des femmes
- Rédemption, 1988, Editions Flammarion
- L'éclaircie, 1990, Editions Flammarion
- Vers la lumière, 1994, Editions des femmes
- Le Manteau noir, 1998, Editions Flammarion, republished as Je suis née, 2010, Editions des femmes
- Issa, 1999, Editions Flammarion
- Under the pseudonym Marie de la Montluel : Mélusine des détritus, 2002, Editions du Rocher
- L'Ombre, 2004, Editions du Rocher
- La Sanction, 2004, Editions des Femmes
- Sable noir, 2005, Editions du Rocher
- Infra- monde, 2005, Editions des Femmes
- Les Obscures, 2008, Editions des Femmes
- Je suis née, 2010, Editions des Femmes, augmented republishing of le Manteau noir
Non fictional writings
- Le corps et le verbe, la langue en sens inverse (essay), 1992, Presses de la Renaissance
- L'Erotique des mots, with Régine Deforges, 2004, Editions du Rocher
Translated books
- Redemption, translated by Monique F. Nagem, 1992, Dalkey Archive Press
- Mother Love, Mother Earth, translated by M. F. Nagem, 1993, Garland Publishing
- Warmth : a bloodsong in "Plays by French and Francophone Women" ; translated by par C.P. Makward et J.G. Miller, 1994, University of Michigan Press: 233-246
- Fées de Toujours, with Jinane Chawaf ; translated in Arabic by Samia Esber, 2000, Ministère de la Culture de Syrie, Damas
Further reading
- Marianne Bosshard, Chantal Chawaf (Rodopi, 1999)
- Rodgers, Catherine,Gender in Modern France: Society in Transition - edited by Malcolm Cook, Grace Davie (Routledge, 1999)
- Monique Saigal, Ecriture: Lien De Mere a Fille Chez Jeanne Hyvrard, Chantal Chawaf Et Annie Ernaux, (Rodopi, 2000)
- Robson, Kathryn,"The female vampire: Chantal Chawaf's melancholic Autofiction" in "Women's writing in contemporary France: New Writers, New Literatures in the 1990s", directed by Rye, Gill & Worton, Michael; (Manchester University Press, 2002)
- Coward, David, History of French Literature: From Chanson de Geste to Cinema;(Blackwell Publishing, 2003)
- Vicki Mistacco, Les Femmes et la tradition littéraire- 2eme partie , Yale University, 2006
- Frédérique Chevillot and Anna Norris, Des Femmes écrivent la guerre, Editions complicité, 2007
- Collectif, Génération MLF 1968-2008 , Ed. des Femmes- Antoinette Fouque, 2008
References
- ^ http://www.desfemmes.fr/catalogue/chantal_chawaf.htm
- ^ Bosshard, Marianne, "Chantal Chawaf", Collection Monographique, Editions Rodopi (1999),
- ^ Kay, Sarah, Cave Terence , Bowie Malcolm," Short History of French Literature" - Page 290, Oxford University Press (2006)
- ^ http://www.uga.edu/rom/syllabi/2009_fall/FREN-8600-Krell.pdf
- ^ http://www.wellesley.edu/French/longdescriptions/216long.html
External links
Categories:- 1943 births
- Living people
- Writers from Paris
- French novelists
- Feminist theory
- French feminists
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