An incest taboo is any cultural rule or norm that prohibits sexual relations between certain members of the same family, mainly between individuals related by blood. All known human cultures have norms that exclude certain close relatives from those considered suitable or permissible sexual or marriage partners, making such relationships taboo. However, different norms exist among cultures as to which blood relations are permissible as sexual partners and which are not. Sexual relations between related persons which are subject to the taboo are called incestuous relationships.
Myrrha, also known as Smyrna, is the mother of Adonis in Greek mythology. She was transformed into a myrrh tree after having intercourse with her father, and gave birth to Adonis in tree form. Although the tale of Adonis has Semitic roots, it is uncertain where the myth of Myrrha emerged from, though it was probably from Cyprus.
House of Incest is a prose poem written by Anaïs Nin. Originally published in 1936, it is Anaïs Nin's first work of fiction. Unlike her diaries and erotica, House of Incest does not detail the author's relationships with famous lovers like Henry Miller, nor does it contain graphic depiction of sex. Rather, House of Incest is a surrealistic look within the narrator's subconscious mind as she attempts to escape from a dream in which she is trapped, or in Nin's words, as she attempts to escape from "the woman's season in hell."
This article is about French literature from the year 2000 to the present day.
Incest: From a Journal of Love: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1932–1934) is a 1992 non-fiction book by Anaïs Nin. It is a continuation of the diary entries first published in Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. It features Nin's relationships with writer Henry Miller, his wife June Miller, the psychoanalyst Otto Rank, her father Joaquín Nin, and her husband Hugh Parker Guiler. She also copied some of her correspondence with these people into her diary. Much of this book was written in English, although those of her letters which were originally written in French and Spanish were translated. Most of this diary takes place in France, particularly Clichy, Paris and Louveciennes.
Christine Angot is a French novelist, playwright and screenwriter.
Marie-Louise-Félicité Angers, better known by her pen name Laure Conan, was a French Canadian writer and journalist. She is regarded as one of the first French-Canadian female novelists and the writer of the first French Canadian psychological novel.
Marie NDiaye is a French novelist, playwright and screenwriter. She published her first novel, Quant au riche avenir, when she was 17. She won the Prix Goncourt in 2009. Her play Papa doit manger is the sole play by a living female writer to be part of the repertoire of the Comédie française. She co-wrote the screenplay for the 2022 legal drama Saint Omer alongside its director Alice Diop, and Amrita David. In September 2022 the film was selected as France's official selection for Best International Film at the 95th Academy Awards.
The Cases of Stübing v. Germany involve a series of criminal prosecutions and appeals surrounding Patrick Stübing and Susan Karolewski, two German siblings who have had four children in an incestuous relationship with each other. Stübing has served several prison sentences for violating German laws prohibiting sexual intercourse between siblings, and Karolewski has been held under supervision for the same. The couple have been allowed to keep only their fourth child. Stübing eventually obtained a vasectomy. Their case has featured in public debate about whether sibling sexual relations should be decriminalised in Germany.
Laws regarding incest vary considerably between jurisdictions, and depend on the type of sexual activity and the nature of the family relationship of the parties involved, as well as the age and sex of the parties. Besides legal prohibitions, at least some forms of incest are also socially taboo or frowned upon in most cultures around the world.
Pardonnez-moi is a 2006 French film written and directed by Maïwenn, starring Maïwenn, Pascal Greggory, Hélène de Fougerolles, and Aurélien Recoing. The film was retitled Forgive Me for the English-language international market. In 2007, Pardonnez-moi received two nominations for César Awards, France's most prestigious film awards, for Best First Feature Film and Most Promising Actress.
Incest is an important thematic element and plot device in literature, with famous early examples such as Sophocles' classic Oedipus Rex, a tragedy in which the title character unwittingly kills his father and marries his mother. It occurs in medieval literature, both explicitly, as related by denizens of Hell in Dante's Inferno, and winkingly, as between Pandarus and Criseyde in Chaucer's Troilus. The Marquis de Sade was famously fascinated with "perverse" sex acts such as incest, which recurs frequently in his works,The 120 Days of Sodom (1785), Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795), and Juliette (1797).
Catherine Cusset is a best-selling French novelist and the author of Life of David Hockney: A Novel, The Story of Jane, and 12 other novels published by Éditions Gallimard between 1990 and 2018. Some of her novels are described as autofiction, a French literary movement that is a hybrid of fiction and autobiography. Others are more romantic, but all share some recurring themes: the family, desire, and cultural conflicts between France and America. She stands out from her contemporaries with a direct, incisive, visual form of writing, marked by the influence of Anglo-Saxon novelists.
The Incest Diary is a 2017 memoir by an anonymous author detailing her incestuous and abusive relationship with her father.
Emma Becker is a French writer living in Paris. Her pen name Becker is derived from Pannebecker, the family name of her German grandmother.
Shez is an Israeli writer, poet and playwright. Recipient of the 1999 Ron Adler Prize for Poetry and the 2007 Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works. She is also a musician and a songwriter, described as "the first out lesbian performer in Israel". More recently she has become a facilitator of writing workshops and "weight loss through writing" workshops.
Teresa D. Lewis is an American translator, writer, and essayist. She is best known for her translation of French author Christine Angot's novel, Incest which was nominated for the Best Translated Book Award and her translation of Austrian poet and novelist Maja Haderlap's novel Angel of Oblivion, which was awarded the 2017 PEN Translation Prize, the Austrian Cultural Forum NY Translation Prize, and was nominated for the BTBA. She has also translated works by Peter Handke, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Jünger, and Philippe Jaccottet. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and received the Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, New College, in 1986. Website: www.tesslewis.org
Camille Kouchner, is a lawyer, French academic and lecturer in private law. With her book, La familia grande, she initiated the Duhamel scandal.
Angéline de Montbrun is a novel written by Laure Conan. It was first published in La Revue canadienne in segments from June 1881 to August 1882 and published as a novel in 1884. It is considered one of the first French Canadian novels written by a woman and the first French Canadian psychological book.
A Family is a 2024 documentary film directed by Christine Angot in her directorial debut. It is an autobiographical documentary which questions the words within a family which was struck by incest.
