Juliana Lopoukhine

Frédéric Regard

Kerry-Jane Wallart

Jean Rhys' position upon the literary map of the 20th century remains unstable, even after Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). She shunned public exposure and yet, desperately sought acknowledgement by her own peers; she stood away from the modernist circles of Montparnasse, in Paris, and yet, explored a radically avant-garde writing which retrospectively makes her rank among them, while her always problematic authority places her in the marginalized position of the postcolonial author. 'Writing precariously', in the case of Jean Rhys, reaches far beyond a mere posture of submission or a necessity to cope with a lack of money or a 'room of one’s own'. Rather, it becomes an ethical and political stance that engages with forms of minimal resistance to forms of subjection just as the very precariousness of her writing thwarts any efforts to 'place' her or her work, to frame her characters or label her style. With Jean Rhys, precariousness is the site where voices silenced and bodies dismissed by a gendered or imperialistic power may be retrieved, until their vulnerability becomes a dislodging force that makes the power structures precarious in turn. This book reassesses the precariousness of Jean Rhys as a distinct positionality eliciting an isolated voice which insists and persists. It was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Women: A Cultural Review.

Writing Precariously

Jean Rhys

This volume investigates the frameworks that can be applied to reading Caribbean author Jean Rhys. While Wide Sargasso Sea famously displays overt forms of literary influences, Jean Rhys's entire oeuvre is so fraught with connections to other texts and textual practices across geographical boundaries that her classification as a cosmopolitan modernist writer is due for reassessment. Transnational Jean Rhys argues against the relative isolationism that is sometimes associated with Rhys's writing by demonstrating both how she was influenced by a wide range of foreign  especially French  authors and how her influence was in turn disseminated in myriad directions. Including an interview with Black Atlantic novelist Caryl Phillips, this collection charts new territories in the influences on/of an author known for her dislike of literary coteries, but whose literary communality has been underestimated.

Lines of Transmission, Lines of Flight

Transnational Jean Rhys

Brenda Moore

Alexandre Leupin

Benaouda Lebdai

Jeanne Jégousso

Valérie Loichot

Jean-Pol Madou

Fabienne Kanor

Michelle Zerba

Pauline Amy de la Breteque

Axel Artheron

Dominique Aurelia

Hughes Azérad

Géraldine Banaré

Cécile Bertin-Elisabeth

Frank Collin

Patricia Conflon Gros-Désirs

Jacques Coursil

Serge Domi

Juliette Éloi-Blézès

Sylvie Glissant

Raphaël Lauro

Corinne Mence-Caster

Michel Mingote Ferreira de Ázara

Monique Milia-Marie-Luce

Valérie Perez

Christine Raguet

Guillaume Robillard

Cécile Rousselet

Christian Saad

Jean-Pierre Sainton

Anaïs Stampfli

Jean-Luc Tamby

Charly Verstraet

Au Diamant, face à la mer, Victor Anicet dit la signifiance de la tombe d’Édouard Glissant ; au morne Bezaudin, Josette Massolin se couche pour embrasser et bénir la terre où l’écrivain naquit. Le cercle de la vie et de la mort semble se clore, mais c’est seulement pour un instant. Car rien n’est vrai, tout est vivant, la mort n’est qu’une éclipse mensongère : l’œuvre vit intensément. Pour en témoigner, une centaine de critiques, d’intellectuels, de philosophes se sont réunis au campus de Schœlcher en mars 2018, autour du thème « Édouard Glissant : l’éclat et l’obscur ». Ce colloque international fut le premier jamais organisé en Martinique pour célébrer l’écrivain en sa terre natale. Toutes les disciplines furent représentées épousant l’esprit d’une œuvre qui ne s’est jamais confinée dans les ghettos académiques et génériques, mais s’est, dès l’origine, ouverte au monde et à la poésie, dans une admirable fusion. Les organisateurs du colloque, Dominique Aurélia, Jean-Pierre Sainton et Alexandre Leupin ont voulu, à travers ce volume, ancrer définitivement Edouard Glissant dans le sable ardent de son pays.

Edouard Glissant, l'éclat et l'obscur

"A reassessment of Jean Rhys's literary cosmopolitanism in terms of transnationalism and her literary influences, including an interview with novelist Caryl Phillips"--

This volume investigates the frameworks that can be applied to reading Caribbean author Jean Rhys. While Wide Sargasso Sea famously displays overt forms of literary influences, Jean Rhys's entire oeuvre is so fraught with connections to other texts and textual practices across geographical boundaries that her classification as a cosmopolitan modernist writer is due for reassessment. Transnational Jean Rhys argues against the relative isolationism that is sometimes associated with Rhys's writing by demonstrating both how she was influenced by a wide range of foreign – especially French – authors and how her influence was in turn disseminated in myriad directions. Including an interview with Black Atlantic novelist Caryl Phillips, this collection charts new territories in the influences on/of an author known for her dislike of literary coteries, but whose literary communality has been underestimated.

Kerry-Jane Wallart

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