Women's Representations of the Occupation in Post-'68 France

This study looks at French women writers and representations of the Occupation in post-'68 France. Two groups of women writers are selected for discussion: "The Women Resisters," those who were adult resisters during the war years, and "The Daughters of the Occupation," those who were born during or after the war. By examining a number of texts, many of which have received little critical attention to date, this study analyzes how a nascent awareness of gender, representation and political activism informs the texts of an older generation of women writers. Such a perspective is reworked into overtly feminist representations of the Occupation by younger women writers who deal with their familial connection to three wartime memories: resistance, collaboration and Jewish persecution. This gender-conscious approach to women's writing and the Occupation marks this book as a new departure in the study of French literature and the Second World War.