Canadian literature in French

The dominant genre in Quebec and French Canadian literature since the latter part of the 20th century has been the novel. In the 1960s, works of fiction reflected the turmoil of the Quiet Revolution in their radical, often sexual, themes and in their unconventional structures, derived in part from the French nouveau roman of the previous decade. The Quebec “new novel” began with Jacques Godbout’s L’Aquarium (1962) and reached its high point in the brilliantly convoluted novels of Hubert Aquin that followed his Prochain épisode (1965; “Next Episode”; Eng. trans. Prochain Episode). Marie-Claire Blais’s Une Saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel (1965; A Season in the Life of Emmanuel), which won the Prix Médicis, presented a scathing denunciation of Quebec rural life, and Godbout’s Salut, Galarneau! (1967; Hail, Galarneau!) described the Americanization of Quebec. Blais went on to receive critical acclaim for Soifs (1995; These Festive Nights), while, 26 years and several novels after Salut, Galarneau!, Godbout produced the sequel Le Temps des Galarneau (1993; The Golden Galarneaus). Constantly renewing himself, Gérard Bessette moved from ironic realism in Le Libraire (1960; “The Bookseller”; Eng. trans. Not for Every Eye) through stream of consciousness in L’Incubation (1965; Incubation) to symbolic narrative in Les Anthropoïdes (1977; “The Anthropoids”) and semiautobiographical diary fiction in Les Dires d’Omer Marin (1985; “The Sayings of Omer Marin”). The poet Anne Hébert achieved success with her novel Kamouraska (1970; Eng. trans. Kamouraska), won the Prix Fémina for Les Fous de Bassan (1982; In the Shadow of the Wind), and won a Governor General’s Award for L’Enfant chargé de songes (1992; Burden of Dreams), although the latter was less successful than her Le Premier jardin (1988; The First Garden). Louise Maheux-Forcier scandalized certain readers in 1963 with Amadou (Eng. trans. Amadou), a poetic novel about lesbian love. Réjean Ducharme in L’Avalée des avalés (1966; The Swallower Swallowed) and other novels presented the disenchantment of young people in the nuclear age. Other popular novelists of the later 20th century include Jacques Ferron, who poked fun at Quebec institutions, particularly in Le Ciel de Québec (1969; The Penniless Redeemer); the author and publisher Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, with his continuing saga of the Beauchemin family; Roch Carrier, who mocked biculturalism in La Guerre, Yes Sir! (1968; Eng. trans. La Guerre, Yes Sir!); and Jacques Poulin, whose early novels, set in the old city of Quebec, are comic visions of life (Mon cheval pour un royaume [1967], Jimmy [1969], and Le Coeur de la baleine bleue [1970]; translated into English under the title The Jimmy Trilogy). His novel Volkswagen Blues (1984; Eng. trans. Volkswagen Blues), although set mostly in the United States, is ultimately a quest for Quebec identity. In the 1980s the success of Yves Beauchemin’s Le Matou (1981; The Alley Cat) and Arlette Cousture’s historical novel Les Filles de Caleb (3 vol., 1985–2003; Emilie) suggested a return in favour of plot-driven narrative.

The political tone of the novel had greatly diminished by the end of the 20th century. In contrast to the hard-edged contestation of the 1960s novel, Jacques Godbout’s Une Histoire américaine (1986; An American Story) testifies to the discouragement of many Quebec intellectuals after the defeat in 1980 of the referendum on separation. The failure of various attempts to negotiate an understanding between Quebec and Canada after Quebec was the sole province not to ratify the Canadian constitution in 1982, as well as the narrow defeat in 1995 of a second referendum on sovereignty, took their toll. The relationship between personal and national identity is often explored through the irony of the postmodern novel, such as Madeleine Ouellette-Michalska’s La Maison Trestler; ou, le 8^e jour d’Amérique (1984; “The Trestler House; or, The Eighth Day of America”) and Acadian novelist France Daigle’s 1953: Chronique d’une naissance annoncée (1995; 1953: Chronicle of a Birth Foretold), both of which combine fiction, biography, and metahistorical commentary. Contemporary fiction tends to favour the personal, hence the prominence of fictional autobiographies, autobiographical novels, and diary and epistolary fiction. Madeleine Monette’s Le Double suspect (1980; Doubly Suspect), Anne Dandurand’s Un Coeur qui craque (1990; The Cracks), and Jacques Brault’s Agonie (1984; Death-Watch) all have elements of fictional diaries. Reworking Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721), Lise Gauvin used in Lettres d’une autre (1984; Letters from an Other) a Persian narrator who comments naively and honestly on Quebec society. Michel Tremblay’s early novels, such as La Grosse Femme d’à côté est enceinte (1978; The Fat Lady Next Door Is Pregnant), are set in the working-class neighbourhood of his youth. With La Nuit des Princes Charmants (1995; “The Night of the Princes Charming”; Eng. trans. Some Night My Prince Will Come), he gives a very candid account of the coming-of-age of a young homosexual. Sometimes referred to as Generation X writers, Louis Hamelin (La Rage [1989; “Rabies”]) and Christian Mistral (Vamp [1988]) began in the late 1980s to focus literary attention on the social concerns of their age.

Another development in fiction has been the increasing prominence of the short story and novella, particularly with the establishment of the literary review XYZ and publishing house XYZ Éditeur in the 1980s. The short story lends itself to many literary themes: science fiction and the fantastic, with works such as Gaétan Brulotte’s Kafkaesque Le Surveillant (1982; The Secret Voice), Jean-Pierre April’s Chocs baroques (1991; “Baroque Shocks”), and Esther Rochon’s Le Piège à souvenirs (1991; “The Memory Trap”); the erotic, with works such as Claire Dé’s Le Désir comme catastrophe naturelle (1989; Desire as Natural Disaster) and Anne Dandurand’s L’Assassin de l’intérieur/Diables d’espoir (1988; Deathly Delights); and the quirky realism of Monique Proulx’s Les Aurores montréales (1996; Aurora Montrealis).

Contemporary poetry has been marked by a return to lyricism with poets such as François Charron (Le Monde comme obstacle [1988; “The World as Obstacle”), whose themes range from politics to sexuality and spirituality. The emphasis on the personal is particularly poignant in the posthumous collection Autoportraits (1982; “Self-Portraits”) by Marie Uguay, stricken at a young age by cancer. Surrealism remains an important influence in Quebec poetry, particularly in the expression of eroticism, as, for example, in the poetry of Roger Des Roches (Le Coeur complet: poésie et prose, 1974–1982 [2000; “The Complete Heart: Poetry and Prose, 1974–1982”). Homosexual eroticism and the impact of AIDS are important themes in André Roy’s poetry (L’Accélérateur d’intensité [1987; “Accelerator of Intensity”]). Other poets have tended to integrate poetry and narrative—for example, Denise Desautels in La Promeneuse et l’oiseau suivi de Journal de la Promeneuse (1980; “The Wanderer and the Bird Followed by Journal of the Wanderer”). Elise Turcotte published her poetry collection La Terre est ici (1989; “The Earth Is Here”) before creating the brief poetic novel Le Bruit des choses vivantes (1991; The Sound of Living Things). Similarly, Louise Dupré established her reputation as a poet before writing the well-received novel La Mémoria (1996; Memoria). Suzanne Jacob has excelled in poetry with La Part de feu (1997; “The Fire’s Share”) and in fiction with the novel Laura Laur (1983). Although poetry no longer enjoys the influence it once did as a vehicle for the expression of collective identity, events such as the annual International Festival of Poetry in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, launched in 1985, attest to its vitality.

The second half of the 20th century saw an impressive growth in Quebec theatre and dramatic writing, with several dozen original plays being performed each year. In Le Vrai Monde? (1987; The Real World?), perhaps his best play, Michel Tremblay explored the ambiguous relationship between life and its representation in art. His libretto for the opera Nelligan (1990) was a departure from his previous work: it studies Quebec through its most tragic voice, that of poet Émile Nelligan. Jean-Pierre Ronfard, one of the founders of the Nouveau Théâtre Expérimental, created a defining moment in Quebec theatre with La Vie et mort du roi boiteux (1981; “The Life and Death of the Lame King”), a six-play cycle whose performance in 1982 lasted more than 10 hours and treated its spectators to a parodic look at the works of Shakespeare and other great authors of the Western world. Since the 1990s, a younger generation of playwrights has often concerned itself with exploring marginalization, sexuality, and violence in society. Such writers include Normand Chaurette with Provincetown Playhouse, juillet 1919, j’avais 19 ans (1981; “Provincetown Playhouse, July 1919, I Was 19 Years Old”), René-Daniel Dubois with Being at Home with Claude (1986), and Michel Marc Bouchard with Les Feluettes; ou, la répétition d’un drame romantique (1987; Lilies; or, The Revival of a Romantic Drama). One of the most prominent members of this generation is playwright and filmmaker Robert Lepage, whose performance-based plays are influenced as much by modern technology as by Shakespeare and Japanese theatre: his productions include Les Plaques tectoniques (first performed 1988; “Tectonic Plates”), Elseneur (1995; “Elsinore”), and Les Sept Branches de la rivière Ota (first performed 1995; The Seven Streams of the River Ota), written with Eric Bernier.

The cosmopolitan culture of French Canada and Quebec

As the example of Lepage illustrates, contemporary culture in French Canada reflects an increasing cosmopolitanism. Immigrant writers have added their voices to those of native-born writers. The Italo-Québécois poet and playwright Marco Micone startled the Quebec literary world when he responded to Michèle Lalonde’s “Speak White” with his own poem “Speak What” (first published in 1989), calling for a more inclusive Quebec society and suggesting that immigrants have replaced the Québécois as the new exploited class. Other immigrant authors who have made their mark include: from Iraq, novelist and essayist Naïm Kattan (Adieu, Babylone [1975; Farewell, Babylon]); from Tunisia, Hédi Bouraoui (Ainsi parle la Tour CN [1999; “Thus Spake the CN Tower”]); from China, novelist Ying Chen (L’Ingratitude [1995; Ingratitude]); from Haiti, novelist Dany Laferrière (Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer [1985; How to Make Love to a Negro]); from Brazil, novelist Sergio Kokis (Le Pavillon des miroirs [1994; Funhouse]); from Egypt, poet Anne-Marie Alonzo (Bleus de mine [1985; Lead Blues]); from Lebanon, playwright and novelist Abla Farhoud (Le Bonheur a la queue glissante [1998; “Happiness Has a Slippery Tail”]); and from France, novelist and theorist Régine Robin (La Québecoite [1993; The Wanderer]). Aboriginal writing has begun to emerge, although no other native author writing in French has achieved the acclaim accorded to Cree writer Bernard Assiniwi for his novel La Saga des Béothuks (1996; The Beothuk Saga), chronicling the tragic fate of the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland. Quebec and French Canadian writers have come to examine the implications of cultural diversity; a notable example is Montreal novelist Francine Noël’s Babel, prise deux; ou, nous avons tous découvert l’Amérique (1990; “Babel, Take Two; or, We All Discovered America”). Contemporary Canadian literature in French reflects heterogeneity in both its literary forms and its representation of an ethnically diverse society.