In writing Le Livre de Promethea Helene Cixous set for herself the task of bridging the immeasurable distance between love and language. She describes a love between two women in its totality, experienced as both a physical presence and a sense of infinity. The result is a stunning example of Pecriture feminine that won kudos when published in France in 1983. Its translation into English by Betsy Wing will extend the influence of a writer already famous for her novels and contributions to feminist theory. In her introduction Betsy Wing notes the contemporary emphasis on "fictions of...

Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1998, this book is the work of one of France's most celebrated and interesting novelists writing at the height of her powers. It is fiction that leads readers through fascinating chambers of life where autobiography is constantly reimagined. A darkly comic novel about four women aging less-than-gracefully, Trading Secrets takes us to an academic conference in Kansas where, in an encounter between Aurore, a French woman, and her American counterpart, Gloria, the differences between their two cultures become sharply apparent. The result is a bitingly funny...

After answering a classified ad placed by an import-export company looking for energetic young men willing to take on responsibilities for its African branches no diploma required Victor finds himself on The Will of God, a dilapidated boat heading into the heart of darkness as even Conrad couldn t have imagined. With the piquant mixture of hilarity and painful disenchantment characterizing Paule Constant s vision of the colonial novel, White Spirit follows three innocents Victor; Lola, a mulatto prostitute; and Alexis, who does not know he s a monkey as they negotiate the...

The Fourth Century tells of the quest by young Mathieu Beluse to discover the lost history of his country, Martinique. Aware that the officially recorded version he learned in school omits and distorts, he turns to a quimboiseur named Papa Longoue. This old man of the forest, a healer, seer, and storyteller, knows the oral tradition and its relation to the powers of the land and the forces of nature. He tells of the love-hate relationship between the Longoue and Beluse families, whose ancestors were brought as slaves to Martinique. Upon arrival, Longoue immediately escaped and went to live in...

Published in France as La jeune nee in 1975, and now translated for the first time into English, The Newly Born Woman seeks to uncover the veiled structures of language and society that have situated women in the position called 'woman's place.'

Catherine Clement analyzes the plots of over thirty prominent operas -- Otello and Siegfried to Madame Butterfly and Magic Flute -- through the lenses of feminism and literary theory to unveil the negative messages about women in stories familiar to every opera listener.