Faulkner in France or How to Introduce a Peripheral Unknown Author in the Center of the World Republic of Letters

Abstract

In the early 1930s, when he started being translated into French, Faulkner was an unknown author in the transnational literary field. Questioning the role of intermediaries-publishers, translators, critics, authors-in the circulation of literary works and in the making of world literature, this article focuses on the role of the French publisher Gallimard in the symbolic recognition of Faulkner. Based on the publisher's archives, the study examines the editorial strategies implemented in order to introduce a foreign author in a country that occupied a central position in the transnational literary field, at a time American literature just began arising interest: Selection and order of publication of the works, prefaces by famous French authors (Malraux), publication in literary journals. These prefaces as well as the first reviews of Faulkner's novels also reveal different strategies of importation, from transfer of symbolic capital to subverting the local literary field (Sartre).