Representations of Marginalized Populations in French WWI Literature

Comfort examines the works of five Francophone authors who wrote about World War I: Maxence Van der Meersch’s Invasion 14, Colette’s war reporting, Bakary Diallo’s Force-Bonté, Blaise Cendrars’s La Main coupée, and Roland Dorgelès’s Le Réveil des morts. Engaging in a close reading, she analyzes what makes these literary works unique and what they all have in common. These are the stories of groups who have remained on the margins of the World War I narrative: women and children, French West Afri