ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the novels: Voyage au bout de la nuit and Zazie dans le metro. It explores how adaptations mirror the reception of these texts, and how they have also participated in sustaining their importance and relevance in the public perception. The book explores the problems and challenges that underscore notions of voice, construction, control, and power in Voyage and Zazie, and how these can be transformed upon adaptation into another medium. It shows that transpositions add layers of complexity to the voices of Voyage and Zazie. The book considers how the textual voices of Zazie are constructed in relation to each other, in an antithetical manner to Voyage. It examines the complex construction and deployment of voices in Zazie, in which the characters are sporadically aware of their status as fictional voices.