Life writing, including autobiographical accounts, diaries, letters and testimonials written or told by women and men whose political, literary or philosophical purposes are central to their lives, has become a standard tool for communication and the dissemination of information. Irene Gammel’s Confessional Politics surmises that in this confessional age, "telling all is in”. Her collection of essays explores the association of confession with femininity; the essays examine its function as a gender-specific discourse as they probe its many feminized genres and subgenres.
Ernest Hemingway`s A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway's memoir of Paris was edited after his death by his fourth wife, who made changes that reflected her opinion of his earlier wives. Now Hemingway's original unedited version of A Moveable Feast is available, but does that really make it the 'correct' version?
Ernest Hemingway with his fourth wife Mary, who edited A Moveable Feast and whose additions and deletions reflected her biases regarding her husband's earlier wives - AFP/Getty Images
Read Irene Gammel's full article.
Read Irene Gammel's A Changeable Feast in the Globe and Mail.
A second look at The Second Sex
As a feminist icon and revolutionary thinker, Beauvoir famously rejected conventional marriage and motherhood. She left an indelible legacy with her novels, memoirs and essays, but it was her magnum opus, Le deuxième sexe (1949), that became the bible of feminism.
Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir in an undated photo.
The new translation of a feminist classic will have readers rethinking not only the work, but Simone de Beauvoir's relationship to Jean-Paul Sartre
Read Irene Gammel's full article.
Read Irene Gammel's The Second Sex in the Globe and Mail.
Revolutionary Rosa
Rosa Luxemburg, one of greatest minds of the German socialist movement, was killed in Berlin in 1919 during the German revolution.
Providing insight into Luxemburg’s courageous and unconventional life (which included several incarcerations), The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg covers Luxemburg's correspondence from 1891 to 1919. The letters remain timely as they stage the complex gender identity of a free-spirited modern who openly defied the sexual mores of her era. Ultimately, these letters show the living, breathing and loving woman behind the legend of "Red Rosa.”
Read Irene Gammel's full review of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg.
