Territoires éparpillés – notes sur la littérature québécoise actuelle
Scattered Territories. The Archipelago of Contemporary Quebec Literature

Author(s): Pierre Nepveu
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, French Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: contemporary Quebec literature; territory; periphery; identity
Summary/Abstract: This short study dealing with the geography of Quebec contemporary literature is inspired by Józef Kwaterko’s major essay, Le roman Québécois et ses (inter)discours, in which he stresses the fact that the nomadic dimension, both spatial and temporal, of Quebec contemporary fiction undermines the traditional notion of identity. The present article examines a paradox: although the Quebec geography or territory is often seen as rather unknown and even disliked by its inhabitant, there is a very dynamic and rich presence of geography in Quebec contemporary poetry and novels. This strong presence of geography is different both from the traditional “terroir”, a rather pastoral and conservative vision of Quebec’s landscape, and from the revendication of “le pays” (the land) which culminated in the 1960s and was linked to the affirmation of Québécois identity. There is a new vision of the land: often peripheric, always unstable and pluralistic, linked at times to indigenous identity (among Innu poets for example) and more generally situated away from the valley of the St-Lawrence river, the traditional area of the first French settlements and of French-Canadian culture. In that sense, Quebec’s contemporary literature sees the territory as a kind of archipelago, in which there is a constant mobility of the imagination, redefining genealogies, cultural references and identity itself.

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