1st Edition
Resistance Heroism and the End of Empire The Life and Times of Madeleine Riffaud
Introduction: portrait of a rebel
1 Dramatis personae
2 Defi ning features: Riffaud and the Resistance
3 Vietnam: a love story
4 Algeria and France: a crime passionnel
5 Poetry as a weapon of war: ‘L’arme pour l’homme désarmé’
6 Edme Liron: the ancestral portrait
7 The portrait revisited: Rainer or Riffaud?
Biography
Keren Chiaroni is Programme Director for French in the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Her research interests include cultural/war history and design for performance. She is the author of The Last of the Human Freedoms (2011) and Editor for the Pacific in the World Scenography Project, vols I and II (OISTAT and York University, 2012, 2014).
"In this book I found the Madeleine I know so well: dynamic, acerbic and as rebellious as ever. Chiaroni presents an unvarnished portrait of Madeleine Riffaud. As well as being an anti colonialist, poet, résistante, and war correspondent, Riffaud is also a thoroughly contemporary rebel who could be considered exemplary by all who seek to fight against injustice and inequality - these are our real enemies in a conflicted world."
Philippe Rostan Filmmaker and Director, award winning director of Les Trois Guerres de Madeleine Riffaud (2010)
"This work has entirely achieved its objective. It offers readers a biography without descending into hagiography, and succeeds in making the links between one individual’s story and the greater story of history. It is also a pleasure to read."
Olivier Wieviorka, scholar of Second World War History and professor of history at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, author of : Histoire de la Résistance: 1940-1945, Perrin, 2013 (prix François-Joseph Audifred de l’Académie des Sciences Morales et politiques, novembre 2013, prix Eugène Colas de l’Académie française, juin 2014)
