Woman to Woman

by Marguerite Duras, Xavière Gauthier, Katharine Ann Jensen (Introduction)

In the summer of 1973, the journalist Xavière Gauthier interviewed the writer and filmmaker Marguerite Duras for an article in Le Monde. The meeting began a productive friendship between the two women that included the recording of four more interviews. They spoke of writing, literature, criticism, film, madness, sex, desire, alienation, Marxism, the situation of women, and their "oppression by the phallic class." Published in 1974 in France as Les Parleuses, the book became a classic statement of a positive and politically forceful feminist stance and an influential exploration of how Western culture has constructed gender roles and dealt with sexuality.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literature

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu, (4 April 1914 -3 March 1996) known as Marguerite Duras, was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker.

Her script for the film Hiroshima mon amour (1959) earned her a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.

Reviews

[Y]

why did we ever write anything after this?

[Salomé]

Marguerite Duras : « Tu me prends pour une malade mentale non ? »

[Madeleine LeBlanc]

Il faut bien connaître l'oeuvre de Duras pour apprécier ce livre. Elle y parle de ses personnages fétiches, de ses lieux favoris dans ses films et ses romans, et de sa vision du monde en général, dans un dialogue avec Xavière Gauthier. Bien que j'ai lu moi-même plus d'une dizaine de livres de Duras, j'ai quand même eu du mal avec le dialogue, entre autre parce que Gauthier tend à idolâtrer sa vis-à-vis, à encenser tout ce qu'elle dit plutôt que de lui donner vraiment la répartie. Ça devient stérile et presqu'indécent à la longue.