La Bâtarde by Violette Leduc, translated from the French by Derek Coltman, Dalkey Archive Press, 2023 “. . . very often, women think that all they need do is to tell their unhappy childhood. And so they tell it, and it has no literary value whatsoever, neither in style, nor in the universality which it ought to contain. So there are many, many autobiographies which publishers reject . . . Very disappointing . . . to think that as long as they’re women telling their story it will be interesting. . . .
