Women and Narrative Identity
Rewriting the Quebec National Text
Description
In Women and Narrative Identity Green demonstrates that the "national text" has at times functioned to constrain women's literary expression, while in other cases it has empowered the feminine voice, endowing it with a unique identitary power. She shows that writers such as Laure Conan, Germaine Guèvremont, Gabrielle Roy, Anne Hébert, and Marie-Claire Blais have been recognized as important because they have been widely perceived as speaking to and about the people of Quebec. The Quebec identity narrative has offered women writers a framework within which they are able not only to make their voices heard but to tell a story of feminine dispossession and desire that often questions central cultural values. Green shows that while women writers in Europe and America have subtly altered the form of the novel, in Quebec women have, in rewriting the narratives of Quebec identity, also redefined the terms of the nation itself.
Reviews
"An indispensable work for students and scholars in the field. This is the first truly comprehensive study of women's writing in Quebec from the nineteenth century to the present." Patricia Smart, Department of French, Carleton University "A significant contribution to the field of Quebec literary studies, both as a work of literary history and as a re-reading of the national identitary text as written by women. Green sheds new light on individual works and new connections are made." Jane Everett, Department of French Language and Literature, McGill University
"This is the first truly comprehensive study of women's writing in Quebec from the nineteenth century to the present." Patricia Smart, Department of French, Carleton University ----- "A significant contribution to the field of Quebec literary studies." Jane Everett, Department of French Language and Literature, McGill University