This first systematic study of the controversial Austrian feminist writer, Elfriede Jelinek, offers an extensive survey and analysis of Jelinek's major texts and a discussion of the literary techniques which characterise her writing. Background contextual information on historical and literary developments is provided to help the reader gain a better understanding of Jelinek's writing and her place within current international debates on feminism and literary theory.

In this timely new study, Catherine Davies provides a critical analysis of post-Franco Spain's most successful women novelists. Delving first into the development of feminism and women's writing and its critical reception in Spain since 1970, the author then focuses on two of the most popular and influential feminist novelists: Barcelona's Montserrat Roig (1946-1991) and Madrid's Rosa Montero (b. 1951). These writers' works share woman-centered themes such as family relationships, the search for self-fulfillment in a restrictive society, and the hope for the construction of a new world...

At the end of World War II, over 20,000 French people accused of collaboration with Germany endured a particularly humiliating act of revenge: their heads were shaved in public. Nearly all those punished were women. This episode in French history continues to provoke shame and unease and as a result has never been the subject of a thorough examination.

This groundbreaking book by Fabrice Virgili throws new light on these acts of retribution and reveals that, contrary to popular belief, a vast number of those women accused were innocent of any sexual involvement with Germans. Further,...

This first systematic study of the controversial Austrian feminist writer, Elfriede Jelinek, offers an extensive survey and analysis of Jelinek's major texts and a discussion of the literary techniques which characterise her writing. Background contextual information on historical and literary developments is provided to help the reader gain a better understanding of Jelinek's writing and her place within current international debates on feminism and literary theory.

This intriguing book provides a up-to-date introduction to the works of Michel Tournier, arguably the most internationally influential French novelist of the last 25 years. His novels have been widely translated and have often provoked controversy and incurred charges of perversion. This study examines the nature of the attack which Tournier mounts on many of the norms and assumptions of Western culture and his often startling reinterpretation of the mythologies which have nourished and sustained it. His critical review of contemporary culture places him in a radical tradition of French...