Prostitution : an excerpt /
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Red Dust,
[1995]
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| Item Description: | "Taken from the first pages of the novel Prostitution ... published in 1975 by Editions Gallimard"--Title page verso. "Prostitution (1975) marks the beginning of Guyotat's radical subversion of French language itself. It is largely a torrent of sexual aggression. The writing is based upon, but not written in, "true" French. It is according to the author "an attack on the word,"... Guyotat calls what he now writes "matiere ecrite" - "written stuff", a kind of basic, or primal, creative matter that transcends any one artistic discipline ...The look of the apostrophe-riddled text of Prostitution is as important as its semantic aspect. Its words and sounds are combined to stimulate an oral reading - either out loud or internally. There were some major difficulties in working out an English-based equivalent of Prostitution. By using an Algerian setting and Arabic vernacular to great subversive effect, Guyotat was relying on France's revulsion for its colonial past, it's guilt about the Algerian War, and its panic about the increasing Arab immigration. My staying with the North African orientation would have distanced this text from American readers. Consequently, I made the bold decision to transpose the setting to an unidentified Caribbean location and shifted the linguistic emphasis from French-Arabic to "Spanglish"."--Translator's preface. The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy was acquired as part of The Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture. The Cushing Library/Women & Gender Studies copy is inscribed by the author. |
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| Physical Description: | 32 pages ; 22 cm |
| ISBN: | 0873760816 9780873760812 |