ABSTRACTS

some title

Heather Brady
(Monmouth College)

The Littérature-monde en français Manifesto in 2007 declares that the world is coming back (le monde revient). Over the last few decades literature of French expression has turned its gaze away from the world and become increasingly self-absorbed. The Manifesto calls for writers and critics to reverse this movement inward and re-orient our gaze towards the four corners of the world. In the very act of re-naming Francophone literature littérature du monde en français, the Manifesto writers intend to draft a New World. What is this New World? A world made up of writers whose identities are  more than Francophone -- multiple, shifting, global. According to the Manifesto, because this new generation of writers lives in between two worlds (entre deux mondes, entre deux chaises), it can no longer be defined by its relationship to the French language. The Manifesto certainly highlights a strand of pluralism that has long existed in France, although seldom celebrated. In so doing, it demands that we create the kind of pluralism that the creators of the literary review _La Pensée de Midi_ have done since 2000. In this paper I will argue that _La Pensée de Midi_ holds much in common with the core principles of the Manifesto; that is, in its view of _le Midi_ as a Mediterranean crossroads, it privileges the kind of fluidity, pluralism and openness heralded by the Manifesto, and similarly recognizes French literature's long-standing engagement with the world.



Contributors to _La Pensée de Midi_ like Jean-Claude Izzo (one of the founders of the _Etonnants voyageurs_ festival), Bruno Etienne and Thierry Fabre view the Midi as the point of departure for a vibrant global exchange between Mediterranean writers. Through essays on archeology, art history, literature and music, they explore questions of identity in order to create a space of regional reciprocity and hospitality through essays on writers across the centuries (Albert Camus, Jean Giono and Rene Char being just a few) as well as contemporary writers from Spain, Lebanon and Algeria. In my paper I discuss the review's approach to the Mediterranean as a source of transnational identity beyond the Hexagon, and Southern France as a kind of borderland opening onto the world. By comparing essays across several issues, I also situate Marseilles's literary importance in the review as a city that, over centuries of existence, continues to reflect the common Mediterranean identity shared by North Africa and Europe. Finally, I conclude that the pluralistic voices of _La Pensée de Midi_ share much with the Littérature-monde en français movement, forcing readers to re-orient their worldview to look towards the edges, borders, or fracture lines of the Hexagon, to create a New World.