La réception de l’œuvre de Zeruya Shalev en France

• Main Author: Gisèle Sapiro
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales 2015-01-01
• Series: Yod
• Subjects: Israeli Literature; Foreign Literature; Reception; Critics
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/yod/2432
• ISSN: 0338-9316; 2261-0200

In 2014, Zeruya Shalev won the prestigious Femina prize for foreign literature. This study of the reception of her first two novels translated in French in the written media examines judgments formulated at the two poles of the field of criticism, the pole of small-scale circulation and the pole of large-scale circulation, using Bourdieu’s field theory. Despite the difficulty for a newcomer from the periphery of the world market of translation to gain attention in central places like Paris, Zeruya Shalev obtained both literary recognition and attention from the media targeting a broader public. While the reception of her first novel, Love Life, was surrounded with a sulfurous perfume, the second, Husband and Wife, confirmed her full literary recognition. The paper analyzes the critical reception from four standpoints: morality, form and style, historical perspective and references. This case study is situated in the broader perspective of the reception of Israeli literature and of foreign literature in France.