Chapter 20 - Literature as a Form of Care?

Summary

My hypothesis is that the beginning of the twenty-first century marked the emergence of a ’therapeutic’ way of writing and reading. Literature is viewed as a way of bringing literature and medicine closer together and extending a more general view on literary forms of attention and the ethics of care. With the example of French and Francophone literature, I suggest a relational turn defines the contemporary literature: literature is considered as a relationship – between the author and herself, between the author and her relatives, between the author and her readers, and between the readers themselves. Literature is a means of producing awareness and attention, that is to say, to point out, to make visible, to give importance to people or to situations that society and the economy do not make visible or invisible.