Life Writing and Transcultural Youth in Contemporary France, 1st ed. 2024
Azouz Begag, Maryam Madjidi, and Laura Alcoba

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224 p. · 14.8x21 cm · Hardback

This book analyses transcultural and autofictional works relating to youth and childhood by three major contemporary authors in France: Azouz Begag, Maryam Madjidi, and Laura Alcoba, of Algerian, Iranian, and Argentinian heritage respectively. Studying texts and societal issues in France from the turn of the millennium to June 2023, it analyses the authors? relationship with both France and the ?home? country, and the problematic pull of return. It highlights how each author uses autofiction and life writing differently. Begag uses autofiction for playful yet compulsive self-reinvention, Madjidi uses it in a search for authenticity, while Alcoba?s autofictional approach highlights the difficulties of dealing with traumatic memory. Issues analysed include the effects of migration on individuals and their descendants, and the writers? multiple cultural belongings and constant self-repositioning. A substantial overview is given of each author?s œuvre, along with societal context for the country of origin or descent, followed by close textual analysis. This is a companion volume to a monograph on Québec.

Chapter 1 (Introduction) Cultural otherness, cultural mixing, and writing the youthful self in France.- Chapter 2: Azouz Begag: home and in-betweenness in a politically engaged writer of Algerian descent.- Chapter 3: Maryam.- Madjidi: Multiple belongings, authenticity, and the dilemmas of self-acceptance.- Chapter 4: Laura Alcoba’s autofictional memorials of youth.- Chapter 5 (Conclusion): Ways of belonging.

Dervila Cooke teaches in the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University, Ireland. She is the author of Indigenous and Transcultural Narratives in Québec (2023), Present Pasts: Patrick Modiano's (Auto) Biographical Fictions (2005) and editor of New Work on Immigration and Identity in Contemporary France, Québec, and Ireland (2016), and of Modiano et l’image (2012).

Explores three adult creative practitioners of minority cultural heritage in France: Algerian, Iranian, and Argentinian Combines close textual discussion of literary production with socio-political perspectives Puts a special focus on childhood and youth to address periods of transition, self-questioning, and self-construction