Transforming family : queer kinship and migration in contemporary Francophone literature / Jocelyn A. Frelier

Bibliogr. p. 237-255

One of the lasting legacies of colonialism is the assumption that families should conform to a kinship arrangement built on normative, nuclear, individuality-based models. An alternate understanding of familial aspiration is one cultivated across national borders and cultures and beyond the constraints of diasporas. This alternate understanding, which imagines a category of "trans-" families, relies on decolonial and queer intellectual thought to mobilize or transform power across borders. In Transforming Family Jocelyn Frelier examines a selection of novels penned by francophone authors in France, Morocco, and Algeria, including Azouz Begag, Nina Bouraoui, Fouad Laroui, Leïla Sebbar, Leïla Slimani, and Abdellah Taïa. Each novel contributes a unique argument about this alternate understanding of family, questioning how family relates to race, gender, class, embodiment, and intersectionality. Arguing that trans- families are always already queer, Frelier opens up new spaces of agency for both family units and individuals who seek representation and fulfilling futures.