Jail Sentences: Representing Prison in Twentieth-century French FictionA long list of canonical writers in Western literature have experienced incarceration and have subsequently written celebrated works about the imprisoned and the condemned. The French tradition is no exception: writers who produced noteworthy texts while incarcerated or who later wrote about their experiences in prison are found on the literary-historical landscape from the medieval era through the twentieth century. Prison writing by inmates, former guards, chaplains, teachers, and doctors is firmly established as part of the fabric of popular culture and has long attracted the attention of culture critics and scholars. Nevertheless, scant analysis exists of the prison novel a literary genre that, as Andrew Sobanet argues in Jail Sentences, uses fiction as a documentary tool. Its narrative peculiarities, which are the main subjects of Sobanet s study, include the use of autobiographical and testimonial techniques to critique the penitentiary system. Jail Sentences is the definitive study of the legacy of the Western tradition of prison writing in twentieth-century French literature. Although Sobanet focuses primarily on French writers Victor Serge, Jean Genet, Albertine Sarrazin, and Franöois Bon his keen sense of literary dialogue pulls into the orbit of his study an international corpus of work, from Dostoyevsky to Malcolm X. Jail Sentences arrives at a coherent definition of the genre, whose unique conventions stem from the innermost regions of our understanding of stories, truth, fiction, and belief. |
Contents
1 | |
1 Everyman in Prison | 29 |
2 A Pariahs Paradise | 63 |
3 A Recidivists Tale | 101 |
4 Corrected Inmates Corrected Texts | 143 |
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Jail Sentences: Representing Prison in Twentieth-century French Fiction Andrew Sobanet No preview available - 2008 |
Common terms and phrases
Albertine Albertine Sarrazin Anick autobiographical bars Bon’s book’s Brulin Bulkaen carceral cavale cell century chapter colonies contract between text Cosworth creative crime criminal critique death penalty depiction describes discourse document documentary effect escape examined example fiction and nonfiction film Fontevrault France François Gaillac guards Harcamone highlights hommes ideological imagined imprisonment incarceration inmates institution Istrati jail Jean Genet L'astragale La cavale La Santé prison literary literature lives maison centrale memoirs Mettray Million Little Pieces Miracle monologue murder narrator narrator-protagonist narrator's notes paratextual Parfois Paris Pauvert penal Penitentiary portrayal prison experience prison literature prison narratives prison novels protagonist punishment referential reform rience rose routine Santé Sarrazin Sartre sentence Serge’s social society specific tells the story testimonial text and reader text’s tion tional Trans traversière Un chant d'amour underline Victor Serge writing workshop young youth detention center