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This study focuses on fictional representations of albinism in the work of the French writers Didier Destremau and Patrick Grainville, and the Francophone Guinean writer Williams Sassine. The focus on selected novels allows for an in-depth study of each narrative and sheds new critical light on these under-studied writers, permitting a comparative discussion of the novels in relation to other writing about albinism. A series of common themes can be found in these novels, which, although present in different combinations and intensities, echo the preoccupations of all fictional writing about albinism. They include a recognition of the problematic relationship between inner and outer reality (in both bodily terms and in relation to notions of inclusion and exclusion), the challenging of accepted categories and designations, and the consequent problematisation of the relationship between Self and Other. Bound up with these issues, of course, are questions of identity and power.
List of contents
Contents: Representations of Albinism - The anomalous Body - Race and Colour - French Literary Representation - Francophone African Literature - Portrayal of Sub-Saharan Africa - Colonial and postcolonial Contexts.
About the author
Charlotte Baker is Lecturer in French in the Department of European Languages and Cultures at Lancaster University. She holds an MA and PhD in French and Francophone Literatures from the University of Nottingham and her research interests centre broadly on twentieth-century French and Francophone fictional writing. Her current research focuses on the theory and representation of the body and identity, and more particularly on the representation of marginalised and stigmatised groups in sub-Saharan Africa.
