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From The Sea Wall To The Lover : Prostitution And Exotic Parody, Pascale Bécel

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This analysis of the two novels highlights Marguerite Duras' equivocal stance with regard to colonial Indochina where she grew up at the beginning of the century. As The Lover rewrites The Sea Wall in the autobiographical mode, the emphasis shifts from an explicit denunciation of colonialism and an implicit subversion of the Lotilian novel, to a parody of exotic themes and narratives. However, by focusing on the two young protagonists' construction of themselves as femmes fatales and prostitutes, this discussion reveals that the politics of gender and race remain at odds in Duras' fictional autobiographies. The cultural other (qua a …

Fundamentally Grounded [Gründlich Mit Grund], Elke Erb

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Translated by James Rolleston et al.

An East German poet examines her own production in the years 1991-1995. Precise images, e.g. of animals and landscapes both primeval and immediate, are correlated with the precise date and manner of their emergence from the poetic unconscious. The poet's self-questioning is autobiographical, professional, and social: What is the correlation between linguistic work and play and the ongoing transformation of a social order? What do intimate moments and enigmatic images tell us about the new realities of a capitalist collectivity? A key to the meaning of wrenching change is found in Erb's intensive involvement …