The theatrical incarnation of the letter in three contemporary literary works: 'De l'autre cote du regard' by Ken Bugul, 'Autoportrait en vert' by Marie NDiaye and 'Lettre d'ete' by Pascale Roze

The letter as literary genre and material object has made an unexpected reappearance in contemporary French and Francophone literature. This dissertation explores the works of three contemporary women writers of very different backgrounds, the Senegalese author, Ken Bugul, and the French writers Marie Ndiaye, and Pascale Roze, and argues that the letter in their works is used subversively, functioning as corporeal presence and virtual performance around which new spaces and times are created.;Chapter One analyzes Ken Bugul's De l'autre cote du regard as a rewriting of her earlier trilogy: Le Baobab Fou, Cendres et Braises et Riwan ou le chemin de sable. In this reenactment, letters become part of a performance. Chapter Two examines Marie NDiaye's Autoportrait en vert, where the letter acts as a catalyst in forcing her to confront a reality that she wants to escape. In Lettre d'ete, analyzed in Chapter Three, Pascale Roze uses the letter's theatricality to reinforce a complicity with the "other" that manages to break down the temporal and spatial boundaries that are traditionally emphasized in epistolary communication. In these works, the letter is no longer the narcissistic rhetorical form that it had become in literary history. The three writers transform the genre into what I term an altruistic one, now aimed explicitly at a public rather than a single reader.;Addressing the possible reasons for this new "mise en scene" of the letter, the dissertation details how the theatrical use of the letter reflects a postcolonial geopolitical reality. These novels, as do most recent writings, break down barriers between genres and the arts, between the written and spoken word. Today's literature does not merely break away from the past but transcends it. In this moment of renewal, the letter has found its place.;The conclusion shows that as an incarnation of the "other," the letter provides a way to reconcile oneself with one's own fragmented story. To do so, the three contemporary French-speaking writers play with the letter's power of illusion in an illusory world, revealing through this letter-theatre the "what is" behind the "what has been."...