MAVIS GALLANT: THE WRITER AS EXILE

Next Monday we shall be speaking in the course  about Mavis Gallant, (born 1922) a writer who, although she was born in Montreal, has spent most of her life in Paris. She also lived in Spain in the early fifties' and this is what the two stories you are going to read are about. She almost returned to Spain in 1999, but did not make it... However, I was lucky enough to interview her in Paris.
Here is the link to the interview, published in Atlantis, the journal published AEDEAN, (Spanish Association for Angloamerican Studies):
http://www.atlantisjournal.org/HTML%20Files/Tables%20of%20contents/22.1%20(2000).htm

Mavis Gallant essay: "What is Style?" (1982)
http://www.mrbauld.com/gallant.html

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:

Does Gallant's description of Madrid in the early 1950's correspond to what your parents/granparents have told you about this period? What "horizon of expectations" do you bring to your reading of the stories (films, TV series, previous readings...)?

Here are the other promised links:

Video about The Paris Stories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFh_A_unK1s

My article on autobiography in "When We Were Nearly Young":
http://jsse.revues.org/index533.html

Thank you all for your contributions to the course. It's been pleasure having you a students!
Keep on reading Canadian Literature!