Mothers of Invention
Feminist Authors and Experimental Fiction in France and Quebec
- Publisher
- McGill-Queen's University Press
- Initial publish date
- Jun 2002
- Category
- Canadian, Feminist
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780773524873
- Publish Date
- Feb 2003
- List Price
- $37.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780773570269
- Publish Date
- Jun 2002
- List Price
- $34.95
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Description
Santoro elucidates notoriously difficult works by the four "mothers of invention" studied - Cixous and Hyvrard from France, and Gagnon and Brossard from Quebec - showing how the rethinking of images associated with femininity and motherhood, a disruptive approach to language, and a subversive relation to novelistic conventions characterize these writers' search for a writing that will best express women's desires and dreams. Mothers of Invention situates such ideologically motivated textual practices within the avant-garde tradition, even as it suggests how women's experimental writings collectively transform our understanding of that tradition. Santoro makes clear the shared ethical and aesthetic commitments that nourished a transatlantic community whose contribution to mainstream literature and cultural productions, including postmodernism, is still being felt today.
About the author
Miléna Santoro is professor at Georgetown University.