Françoise Lionnet is Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of Postcolonial Representations: Women, Literature, Identity, also from Cornell University Press.

Autobiographical Voices is an innovative, highly suggestive study of autobiographical writing that cuts across traditional boundaries of canon and culture, gender, genre, and academic discipline. Lionnet's purpose is to break down accepted polarities, opening up the field of literary studies to a cultural diversity that she herself has incorporated in both her subject matter and methodology. Although a scholarly work, this book also expresses a forthright message about freedom of expression, especially that of groups silenced by political and cultural oppression.- Mary Rice-Defosse (Modern Language Studies)