In search of shelter

"The fiction of French postcolonial writer Paule Constant is remarkable in its lurid and disturbing portrayals of female characters suffering in profoundly oppressive "colonizing" circumstances. In In Search of Shelter, Margot Miller skillfully synthesizes Karen Horney's model of submission, aggression, and withdrawal; Jean Baker Miller's concept of relational being; Julia Kristeva's idea of psychic space; and Kelly Oliver's notions on social support to analyze Constant's work. Miller's close reading also brings to light previously unnoticed references that illuminate the characters' psychological realities, revealing Constant's nuanced treatment of violence through language, her implicit understanding of the intersections of interpersonal and cognitive psychology as well as of mythological and cultural awareness, in both literature and lived experience. In introducing Paule Constant's work to an English-speaking audience, Miller discovers innovative new ways of reading these and other works of fiction."--BOOK JACKET.