Memoir History Class Analysis +3 The Years Les Années Annie Ernaux (2008) A collective autobiography capturing the passage of time in French society from the post-war period to the present. A masterpiece by the Nobel Prize winner, inventing a new form of impersonally intimate narrative. Read More →
Mobility Body Politics Philosophy +2 Flights Bieguni Olga Tokarczuk (2007) Flights is a masterpiece by Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, deeply imbued with feminist meaning. Through a constellation of stories about travel, anatomy, and preservation, Tokarczuk challenges traditional patriarchal concepts binding women to 'home' and 'settlement,' proposing a new female subjectivity based on mobility and the radical autonomy of the body. Read More →
Linguistic Sexism Body Politics History +1 Thus She Is Ainsi soit-elle Benoîte Groult (1975) Thus She Is (Ainsi soit-elle) is a foundational text of modern French feminism, selling over a million copies and defining a generation. With passionate prose, Benoîte Groult indicts misogyny in all its forms, from linguistic sexism and the erasure of women's history to the physical brutality of female genital mutilation, calling on women to reclaim the definition of their own existence. Read More →
Anarchist Feminism Political Participation Social Justice +2 The Memoirs of Louise Michel Mémoires de Louise Michel, écrits par elle-même Louise Michel (1886) The Memoirs of Louise Michel is the autobiography of the famous 19th-century anarchist, feminist, and Paris Commune fighter Louise Michel. It chronicles her combat experiences during the Paris Commune, her subsequent exile, and her unwavering belief in social justice, women's liberation, and anarchist ideals. Read More →