Chantal Chawaf
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Chantal Chawaf (born 1943) is a French writer.
She was born in Paris, during the World War II. During her childhood, she studied art and literature. She travelled in Europe before living in the Middle East for some years. When she returned to France, she started publishing in 1974 at the Editions des Femmes, created by the leading French feminist Antoinette Fouque. Chawaf’s first novel, Retable. la rêverie, started her own style of writing, which later was designed as being part of "Écriture féminine" movement. Books which also belong to this movement are; Cercoeur (1975) and Maternité (1979).
In her books, Chawaf explores the theme of a mother-daughter relationship and attempts to realise the potential of words to free the female unconscious, to dissintellectualize her body and give voice to an inner experience, rarely described.
Chawaf is the writer of the birth and of a new language upon life, made necessary at at the time of emerging biosciences.
She travelled frequently in the United States where her work is translated and studied in universities.
She is the author of many novels, and some plays and essays, and is editor at the French publisher Editions du Rocher
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[edit] Bibliography
- Retable. La rêverie, 1974, Editions des femmes
- Cercœur, 1975, Mercure de France
- Chair chaude (théâtre), 1976, Mercure de France
- Blé de semence, 1976, Mercure de France
- Le Soleil et la Terre, 1977, Editions Jean-Jacques Pauvert
- Rougeâtre, 1978, Editions Jean-Jacques Pauvert
- Maternité, 1979, Editions Stock
- Landes, 1980, Editions Stock
- Crépusculaires, 1981, Editions Ramsay
- Les Surfaces de l'orage, 1982, Editions Ramsay
- La Vallée incarnate, 1984, Editions Flammarion
- Elwina, le roman fée, 1985, Editions Flammarion
- Fées de toujours (with Jinane Chawaf), 1987, Editions Plon
- L'intérieur des heures, 1987, Editions des femmes
- Rédemption, 1988, Editions Flammarion
- L'éclaircie, 1990, Editions Flammarion
- Vers la lumière, 1994, Editions des femmes
- Le Manteau noir, 1998, Editions Flammarion
- Issa, 1999, Editions Flammarion
- Under the pseudonym Marie de la Montluel : Mélusine des détritus, 2002, Editions du Rocher
- L'Ombre, 2004, Editions du Rocher
- La Sanction, 2004, Editions des Femmes
- Sable noir, 2005, Editions du Rocher
- Infra- monde, 2005, Editions des Femmes
[edit] Non fictional writings
- L'Erotique des mots, with Régine Deforges, 2004, Editions du Rocher
[edit] Translated books
- Redemption, translated by Monique F. Nagem, 1992, Dalkey Archive Press
- Mother Love, Mother Earth, translated by M. F. Nagem, 1993, Garland Publishing
- Warmth : a bloodsong in "Plays by French and Francophone Women" ; translated by par C.P. Makward et J.G. Miller, 1994, University of Michigan Press: 233-246
- Fées de Toujours, with Jinane Chawaf ; translated in Arabic by Samia Esber, 2000, Ministère de la Culture de Syrie, Damas
[edit] Further reading
- Marianne Bosshard, Chantal Chawaf (Rodopi, 1999)
- Rodgers, Catherine,Gender in Modern France: Society in Transition - edited by Malcolm Cook, Grace Davie (Routledge, 1999)
- Monique Saigal, Ecriture: Lien De Mere a Fille Chez Jeanne Hyvrard, Chantal Chawaf Et Annie Ernaux, (Rodopi, 2000)
- Robson, Kathryn,"The female vampire: Chantal Chawaf's melancholic Autofiction" in "Women's writing in contemporary France: New Writers, New Literatures in the 1990s", directed by Rye, Gill & Worton, Michael; (Manchester University Press, 2002)
- Coward, David, History of French Literature: From Chanson de Geste to Cinema;(Blackwell Publishing, 2003)
