Drawing attention to the existence in France of an AIDS literature from 1985 to 1988, before AIDS became either a wildly recognised genre or a culturally influential form of writing, this predominately critical literary study is informed by gender studies and psychoanalytic criticism in its readings of individual texts. Interwoven with contextual information, the book provides sympathetic readings of courageous writers who have been unfairly criticised, like Dreuilhe, or forgotten like Simonin, or like Aron, never properly understood.