{"product_id":"the-documentary-imagination-in-twentieth-century-alison-james-9780198859680","title":"The Documentary Imagination in Twentieth-Century French Literature: Writing with Facts","description":"\u003cem\u003eThe Documentary Imagination in Twentieth-Century French Literature\u003c\/em\u003e identifies a documentary impulse in French literature that emerges at the end of the nineteenth century and culminates in a proliferation of factual writings in the twenty-first. Focusing on the period bookended by these two moments, it highlights the enduring concern with factual reference in texts that engage either with current events or the historical archive. Specifically, it considers a set of ideas and practices centered on the conceptualization and use of documents. In doing so, it contests the widespread narrative that twentieth-century French literature abandons the realist enterprise, and argues that writers instead renegotiate the realist legacy outside, or at the margins of, the fictional space of the novel. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAnalyzing works by authors including Gide, Breton, Aragon, Yourcenar, Duras, and Modiano, the book defines a specific documentary mode of literary representation that records, assembles, and investigates material traces of reality. The document is a textual, visual, or material piece of evidence repurposed through its visual insertion, textual transcription, or description within a literary work. It is a fact, but it also becomes a figure, standing for literature's confrontation with the real. The documentary imagination involves a fantasy of direct access to a reality that speaks for itself. At the same time, it gives rise to concrete textual practices that open up new directions for literature, by interrogating the construction and interpretation of facts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Alison James\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0198859686\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780198859680\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/03\/2020\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 288\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.35lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.30h x 6.50w x 0.90d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/01\/2021","brand":"Alison James","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43942868091135,"sku":"9780198859680","price":93.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_4964d7b4-570f-4e60-803d-db2ed1bb45d0.jpg?v=1681494823","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-documentary-imagination-in-twentieth-century-alison-james-9780198859680","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}