Good Mother, Bad Mother. The Depiction of Mother Figures in Agnès Desarthe's 'Un secret sans importance and Mangez-moi'

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject French Studies - Literature, grade: 68, University of Birmingham, course: BA Modern Languages, language: English, abstract: Agnès Desarthe, winner of the prestigious 'prix du Livre Inter' and writer of adult and children's fiction alike, examines a variety of themes in her works, including one of the most perennial in writing by women: motherhood. Francesca Counihan discusses the fact that more and more French women authors have 'come to prominence [including] more discreet presences such as Agnès Desarthe.' When her second novel Un secret sans importance was published in 1996, Desarthe was indeed 'une quasi-inconnue' but with several more novels published in the intervening years, a good number of which were translated into English, Desarthe's works were more frequently disseminated and discussed by the time her seventh novel, Mangez-moi, was published in 2006.