Rebel Voices
They were exiled, publicly attacked and persecuted, their work was torn to shreds — even physically burned — and yet female writers have consistently pushed French literature in new directions by rebelling against the literary and cultural norms of their day. In Rebel Voices, literary critic and journalist Margot Dijkgraaf sketches ten portraits of women from the 17th to the 21st century who have not only left their definitive mark on the French world of letters, but also inspired readers and writers for generations.
Non-FictionPrint
Original title
Zij namen het woord
Author
Margot Dijkgraaf
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Entertaining, enlightening and inspiring, she describes heroines such as George Sand, Simone de Beauvoir, Madame de Staël, Colette and Annie Ernaux, together a cross-section of four centuries of literature.
Trouw
Dijkgraaf beautifully demonstrates how those “feminine writers” (there are undoubtedly also masculine female writers, who obediently conformed to the prevailing rules) had to fight during their lives for autonomy and authenticity.
de Volkskrant
Margot Dijkgraaf
Margot Dijkgraaf (b. 1960) is a literary critic, journalist and author. She was the director of the Centre Français du Livre at the Maison Descartes as well as the Academic-Cultural Center Spui25 in Amsterdam. She currently works for the Dutch embassy in Paris.