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This book introduces an English-speaking public to the life of Madeleine Riffaud - one of the last living leaders of the French Resistance. It considers the nature of the rebel hero in France's founding historical narratives (revolution, insurrection, resistance) while asking what contributions such a hero might make to debates on national identity today.
List of contents
Introduction: portrait of a rebel
- Dramatis personae
- Defining features: Riffaud and the Résistance
- Vietnam: a love story
- Algeria and France: a crime passionnel
- Poetry as a weapon of war: 'L'arme pour l'homme désarmé'
- Edme Liron: the ancestral portrait
- The portrait revisited: Rainer or Riffaud?
Index
About the author
Keren Chiaroni is Programme Director for French in the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research interests include cultural/war history and design for performance. She is the author of The Last of the Human Freedoms (2011) and Editor for the Pacific in the World Scenography Project, vols I and II (OISTAT and York University, 2012, 2014).
Summary
This book introduces an English-speaking public to the life of Madeleine Riffaud – one of the last living leaders of the French Resistance. It considers the nature of the rebel hero in France’s founding historical narratives (revolution, insurrection, resistance) while asking what contributions such a hero might make to debates on national identity today.
Additional text
"In this book I found the Madeleine I know so well: dynamic, acerbic and as rebellious as ever. Chiaroni presents an unvarnished portrait of Madeleine Riffaud. As well as being an anti colonialist, poet, résistante, and war correspondent, Riffaud is also a thoroughly contemporary rebel who could be considered exemplary by all who seek to fight against injustice and inequality - these are our real enemies in a conflicted world."
Philippe Rostan Filmmaker and Director, award winning director of Les Trois Guerres de Madeleine Riffaud (2010)
"This work has entirely achieved its objective. It offers readers a biography without descending into hagiography, and succeeds in making the links between one individual’s story and the greater story of history. It is also a pleasure to read."
Olivier Wieviorka, scholar of Second World War History and professor of history at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, author of : Histoire de la Résistance: 1940-1945, Perrin, 2013 (prix François-Joseph Audifred de l’Académie des Sciences Morales et politiques, novembre 2013, prix Eugène Colas de l’Académie française, juin 2014)
