Writing Ambition

Focusing on the psychological aspects of the literary engagements between women in France, Katharine Ann Jensen combines close readings of their works with attention to historical and biographical contexts to consider how and why one or both women in the pair express contradictions or anxiety about writing ambition.

In Writing Ambition: Literary Engagements between Women in France, Katharine Ann Jensen analyzes the work of three pairs of women writing in French—Genlis and Lafayette, Colette and Annie de Pène, and Nancy Huson and Leïla Sebbar—to assess how their literary ambitions affected their engagements with each other. Focused on the psychological aspects of the women’s relationships, the author combines close textual readings of their works with attention to historical and biographical contexts to consider how and why one or both women in the pair express contradictory or anxious feelings about literary ambition.

Chapter One, Rewriting for Moral Improvement: Genlis Competes with Lafayette

Chapter Two, Friends and Writers: Annie de Pène and Colette

Chapter Three, Exile, Loss, and Anxiety: Literary Ambition in Huston and Sebbar's

Parisian Letters