Of Stories and Men: Discursive Self-fashioning and the Confessional Narrative of Love and Self-hatred in Louis de Bernières’ A Partisan’s Daughter

Abstract

Louis de Bernières is known especially for his international bestseller Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994) and the historical saga Birds Without Wings (2004). His most recent novel, A Partisan’s Daughter (2008), represents a strikingly different kind of writing, much more subtle and intimate and therefore less ambitious in terms of its plot construction and thematic structure. Through the use of diverse narrative and stylistic techniques, particularly that of the male mock-testimonial, de Bernières manages to explore many of the thematic concerns of his previous works as well as several new ones.