Chantal Chawaf's literary work primarily explores the themes of the mother-daughter relationship and the endeavor to liberate the female unconscious through words. Her style, termed "écriture féminine" or "feminine writing," seeks to de-intellectualize the body and give voice to inner experience. In her later works, her perspective expands to an ecocriticism of contemporary society, inspired by themes of birth and life-giving. Her writings have been translated and are studied at universities in the United States.
In Redemption French feminist writer Chantal Chawaf explores the dark paths of madness and sadism, where sexuality evokes cannibalism and vampirism. The language of the body and the body of language are stripped naked in Chawaf's violently beautiful prose as she mounts this terrorist attack on the age-old theme of redemption through love.