Andre Malraux: Across Boundaries

Andre Malraux's output, spanning some 55 years, ranges from novels to philosophical essays, studies on the plastic arts and memorialist essays. The present volume is significantly innovative in that it sets out to elucidate this diversity by focusing, for the first time and from a variety of perspectives, on the erosion of boundaries which characterises Malraux's work. This erosion is multi-faceted and includes the crossing of genre boundaries; the appropriation of the literary text as political vehicle; the exploitation of the literary text as historical document; contemporary history as a source of literary texts; the slippage between autobiography and the novel, autobiography and the memorialist essay and between fiction and the memorialist essay. Contributors to this volume explore the complex relationship between fact and fiction underpinning Malraux's writing, and also his life. An understanding of Malraux's determination to ignore boundaries is crucial to the understanding of his life and work. In this respect the present study will interest academics and students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, of French literary and cultural studies.