Framing Narratives of the Second World War and Occupation in France, 1939–2009

The Second World War and the German Occupation remain a major focal point in French culture and society, with new and sometimes controversial titles published every year – Irène Némirovsky’s Suite française and Jonathan Littell’s Les Bienveillantes, both rapidly translated into English, offer just two examples of this significant phenomenon.

Gathering within one volume studies of genres, visual cultures, chronology, narrative theory, and a wealth of narratives in fiction and film, Framing narratives of the Second World War and occupation in France 1939-2009 brings together an internationally distinguished group of contributors and offers an authoritative overview of criticism on war and occupation narratives in French, a redefinition of the canon of texts and films to be studied and a vibrant demonstration of the richness of the work in this area.

Edited by two leading specialists, the book includes contributions by William Cloonan, Richard J Golsan, Leah Hewitt, Colin Nettelbeck and Gisèle Sapiro.