La dame ? la louve

Although Renée Vivien led a life of wealth and privilege in belle epoque Paris, she often felt like an outsider because she was attracted to other women. Financially secure, she wrote books to suit her own taste rather than that of the literary market. La dame à la louve, from 1904, shows her at the height of her powers.

These fierce, surprising stories challenge moral hypocrisy and normative views about gender, beginning with the title work, which offers a coded representation of same-sex love in the seemingly inexplicable commitment between a woman and her canine companion. The following stories feature a reimagined fairy tale in which Prince Charming turns out to be a young woman, a western adventure whose narrator goes mad with thirst, and other unconventional narratives that range across time and space.

Renée Vivien is the pen name of Pauline Mary Tarn, born to Anglo-American parents in London in 1877. Raised in Paris, she wrote mainly in French and published numerous books of poetry and prose, beginning with Études et préludes in 1901. A pioneer in the unapologetic expression of lesbian love, she died in 1909.