Product Description: Paule Constant's OUREGANO, originally published in France in 1980, received the Prix Valéry Larbaud and was a finalist for the prestigious Prix Goncourt. The novel is a scathing indictment of the self-absorbed consciousness responsible for individual and collective social failure in 1950s central Africa...read more

The fiction of French post-colonial writer Paule Constant is remarkable in its lurid and disturbing portrayals of female characters suffering in profoundly oppressive "colonizing" circumstances. In In Search of Shelter: Subjectivity and Spaces of Loss in the Fiction of Paule Constant, author Margot Miller skillfully synthesizes Karen Horney's model of submission, aggression and withdrawal, Jean Baker Miller's concept of relational being, Julia Kristeva's idea of psychic space, and Kelly Oliver's notions on social support to analyze Constant's work. Miller's close reading also brings to light previously unnoticed mythological references in Constant's fiction which illuminate the characters' psychological realities, and examines Constant's nuanced treatment of violence through language. In Search of Shelter: Subjectivity and Spaces of Loss in the Fiction of Paule Constant reveals the myriad intersections of interpersonal and cognitive psychology, mythological and cultural awareness, literature, and lived experience, and suggests new ways of reading these and other works of fiction.

Product Description: Winner of the Prix Goncourt in 1998, this book is the work of one of France's most celebrated and interesting novelists writing at the height of her powers. It is fiction that leads readers through fascinating chambers of life where autobiography is constantly reimagined...read more