English Fiction in France: A Cross-Channel Dialogue at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century

After a period of postmodern innovation, readers as well as some writers in France have developed a taste for English fiction, preferably for texts that invite immersive reading. In contrast to earlier cross-Channel studies with their emphasis on French influence on English literature, an enquiry into current Anglo-French literary relations might show the reverse being true. For a start, this article discusses creative responses to English works in three French novels: Sylvia Tabet represents the Franco-British literary dialogue as an encounter with a variety of Victorian and post-Victorian voices; Julie Wolkenstein stages it as a negotiation between a novel by Henry James and her own fiction; and Jacqueline Harpman replies to Virginia Woolf’s Orlando with an updated version of the myth of the androgyne. Like the English pre-texts, the French offshoots encourage identificatory reading, yet by their mise en abyme techniques they also provoke critical reflection.