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The
Text Is Myself
Women's Life Writing
and Catastrophe
Miriam Fuchs
Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography,
William L. Andrews, General Editor
"Miriam Fuchs is breaking new ground. Her remarkable
exploration of catastrophe writing will be important in autobiography
studies and fascinating to all who care about self-representation
as a mode of survival."—Susanna Egan, author of
Mirror-Talk: Genres of Crisis in Contemporary Autobiography
Queen Lili'uokalani, the last monarch of Hawai'i, was forced
to abdicate and faced the annexation of her homeland. American
poet H.D. wrote through the London blitz and during the years
of less regular bombing. Italian novelist and art critic Anna
Banti lost the manuscript of her novel about Artemisia Gentileschi
but survived the war devastation to Florence to rewrite it. German-Jewish
novelist Grete Weil fled to Holland, but her husband was arrested
there and murdered by the Nazis. Chilean novelist Isabel Allende
fled her country after her uncle Salvador Allende was assassinated
and she later lost her daughter to disease.
In The Text Is Myself, Miriam Fuchs analyzes the impact
of catastrophe on the lives and writings of these five women.
She shows that, however much the past may be shaped into a discernible
storyline, it is the uncertain present that preoccupies these
writers. Using a feminist and comparative approach to the texts,
Fuchs links the women in creative and insightful ways and displays
their many profound connections, despite the differences in their
cultural and geographic backgrounds.
Fuchs argues convincingly for a new genre within life writing—the
narrative of catastrophe, defined by the writing process that
occurs during catastrophic events. Two narratives are being told,
and two levels of representation, literal and figurative, are
present.
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Miriam
Fuchs is professor of English at
the University of Hawai'i and associate editor of the journal
Biography. |
For more information contact
our publicity manager, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations viii
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 3
Chapter 1 Autobiography as Political Discourse:
Lili'uokalani's Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen 29
Chapter 2 Autobiographical Fiction as Testimony
H. D.'s The Gift 78
Chapter 3 Biographical Fiction as Autobiographical
Palimpsest:
Anna Banti's Artemisia 109
Chapter 4 Biblical Renarratization as Autobiographical
Intertext:
Grete Weil's The Bride Price: A Novel 139
Chapter 5 Autobiographical Discourse as
Biographical Tribute:
Isabel Allende's Paula 162
Conclusion 196
Notes 201
Works Cited 235
Index 247
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Now Available
December 2003 LC: 2003005656 PN
280 pp. 6 x 9 12 b/w photos, 4 figures
ISBN 0-299-19064-1 Paper $24.95 s
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