Writers and Their Work in the Fiction of Linda Lê

Thursday 20 April, 1pm Milgate Room, AD Hope Bldg, SLLL

Historically, novelists from former French colonies who write in French have come under special scrutiny. Some have been accused outright of plagiarism; in at least one case, such an accusation ended a writer’s career. Linda Lê, the most prolific contemporary writer in French with ties to Viet Nam, implicitly probes the issues of originality, intertextuality and plagiarism in her fiction by casting writers as main characters. At the same time she examines the multiple identities of immigrant writers in French and their challenges to what constitutes French literature.

Jack A. Yeager is Professor of French Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. His work focuses on narratives in French from Viet Nam and from diasporic Vietnamese communities. At LSU he teaches classes on Southeast Asia, Québec and Francophone studies generally as well as courses in French language.