Reimagining reading clubs: Delaume, Delorme, Rychner, Volodine

Abstract

The recent proliferation of book clubs in the Francophone cultural space prompts an examination of how such social spaces inform fiction and foster an imagination of reading as a politicized and collective activity, particularly for women and feminists. The exchanges within these book clubs stimulate an imagination of literature as a politicized activity, often assumed to have continuity with activist endeavors, when reading is not perceived solely as a tool for self-care. In light of this observation, this article aims to investigate the modalities of transferring the social model of women's reading clubs to contemporary Francophone novels, as exemplified in the works of Chloé Delaume, Wendy Delorme, Antoinette Rychner, and Antoine Volodine. By identifying the typologies of these fictional clubs, the conveyed imagination of reading, and the activities and values associated with it, the article seeks to determine what it means, within this imaginative framework, to organize collectives for caregiving, building connections, and, in some cases, forming an armed faction (both physically and intellectually) against patriarchal and sexist oppression.