ABSTRACTS

'Ecrire est un verbe transitif': Nancy Huston and the ethics of the novel

Diana Holmes
(University of Leeds UK)

The manifesto and subsequent book Pour une littérature-monde argue not only for a polycentric rather than metropolitan/francophone vision of literature in French, but also for the renewal of narrative and social engagement in a contemporary French novel characterized, in Todorov's terms, by formalisme, solipsisme, nihilisme' (La Littérature en peril, 2007). The littérature-monde' which the manifesto calls for is also a literature about the world. Nancy Huston, one of the manifesto's signatories, has engaged since the early 1980s in a defence and celebration of the mimetic and story-telling functions of the novel, functions which she argues are central to the ethics of the genre, despite their devaluation in post-nouveau roman France. Huston's conception of the novel is articulated theoretically in a series of polemical and eminently readable essays, but also through the novelistic practice that has made her a popular and prize-winning author in both French and English (e.g. Lignes de faille won the Prix Femina in 2006; its English version Faultlines was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2008). Her work contrasts radically with dominant trends in contemporary French fiction and in particular with the practice of most women writers since the écriture féminine moment of the 1970s. This paper will explore the manifesto's arguments on the nature and ethics of the novel, arguing that Huston's theory and fiction illuminate these critical debates and flesh out the implications of littérature-monde' for, in particular, narrative technique and its relationship with implied and actual readership. This argument will also involve a brief consideration of the particular implications of littérature-monde' for women's writing.



Diana Holmes

University of Leeds UK