Écrire à l’encre violette: littératures lesbiennes en France de 1900 à nos jours éd. par Aurore Turbiau et al (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Écrire à l’encre violette: littératures lesbiennes en France de 1900 à nos jours éd. par Aurore Turbiau et al Miléna Santoro Turbiau, Aurore, Margot Lachkar, Camille Islert, Manon Berthier et Alexandre Antolin, éd. Écrire à l’encre violette: littératures lesbiennes en France de 1900 à nos jours. Le Cavalier bleu, 2022. ISBN 979-10-318-0516-0. Pp. 293. With a “lavender” title borrowed from Wittig to accentuate its focus on lesbian literature, this collection of chronologically organized chapters by five contributing authors traces the history of those who have explored lesbianism and other apposite themes since the Belle Époque in France. Although the choice to use inclusive language (auteurices, iel, celleux) is deliberately open-ended, the vast majority of authors considered in this volume were or are women, from the celebrated early icons like Barney, Colette, Vivien and Leduc, through the theoretical pioneers de Beauvoir, Cixous, and Causse, and concluding with writers of the twenty-first century, such as Bouraoui, Daas, Debré and Delorme. That this volume is devoted mainly to white women is acknowledged, as is the dearth of trans representation, and of course, women from the Francophone world whose work is scarcely mentioned, mostly because few are published in France. If there is little identity intersectionality, the literary diversity covered is vast: genres mentioned include poetry, autofiction and memoir, essays, correspondence, and novels, and popular literature like SFF, thrillers and mysteries, and romance. The corpus excludes youth fiction, comics, songs and theatre, but the ample bibliography and constellation of names mentioned in the preface by Robichon and the postface by Bonnard and Lebovici point the reader to further avenues of exploration. The dual goal of this first “synthesis” of French lesbian literature (239) is to bring to light a marginalized community of writers and texts and to show how, within the literary and political context of their publication, they question, alter, or transgress the limits of gender and genre, love and language, the body and its politics. If “identifier une œuvre comme ‘lesbienne’ ne suffit […] pas à la comprendre” (237), this volume’s overview of over a century of lesbian writings allows us to grasp how much has been marginalized, forgotten, or simply not been made visible by editors and booksellers who have historically not identified lesbian and LGBTQ+ works. This volume is most useful when it connects the dots, showing how mentoring or supportive communities helped some, like Leduc or Bessette, to find publishers, how reappropriating Sappho or mythological figures connect authors across time (from Vivien to Wittig), and how periods of effervescence, like the interwar years, could be followed by moments of regression, where opportunities for lesbian self-expression were scarce, due to legal, social, or economic conditions. This is as much a social as a literary history, despite its focus on major figures such as Wittig. Where it occasionally falters is in its treatment of outside influences, particularly Quebec writers whose work and connections with French counterparts are not always [End Page 213] adequately or accurately acknowledged here. What does clearly emerge is the wide variety of voices, themes, styles and approaches that have characterized and enriched women-centered writings from “Paris-Lesbos” to today’s queering of the literary landscape. For this alone, there is reason to celebrate a “lavender legacy,” which this volume reveals as a major tradition that should transform our understanding of French literary history. [End Page 214] Miléna Santoro Georgetown University (DC) Copyright © 2023 American Association of Teachers of French