Confessing Teenage Years to Teenagers: The “Confessions” Collection from Les Éditions De La Martinière

Abstract

Created in the early 2000’s on the initiative of editor Béatrice Decroix, the “Confessions” collection published by Les Editions de La Martinière represents a special moment in French youth's literature. It's a unique experience in a context where autofictional literature is booming in the mainstream publishing world. By presenting the collection and its challenges, and studying some of the books published in it by the most prominent children's authors of the time, the aim of this article is to analyze the ways in which the authorial “I” comes into play when addressing a young audience. Even if the authors sometimes come up against the thematic or ethical injunctions of literature aimed at young adolescents, they nonetheless set up innovative narrative devices, through which they question the very practice of autobiographical writing and its boundaries.