Forgotten Engagements: Women, Literature and the Left in 1930s France

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This study is the first to examine the contribution made by women writers to politically committed literature in 1930s France. Its purpose is to bring to light the work of female authors of left-wing fiction whose novels are comparable to those of well-known male practitioners of littérature engagée. It analyses the novels of Madeleine Pelletier, Simone Téry, Edith Thomas, Henriette Valet and Louise Weiss in the context of the inter-war models of committed literature in relation to which they were produced. Consideration of this body of fictional texts, not previously brought together by literary historians, shows how women were able to relate to fiction and to politics in inter-war France. Situating the novels in relation to their social, historical, literary and political environment, the book makes an important contribution to the literary and cultural history of twentieth century France. The analysis of inter-war political writing by women calls into question the usual criteria against which women's writing tends to be evaluated by feminist scholarship. The book will appeal to readers with an interest in women's writing, political writing, and the development of French literature in the first half of the twentieth century.