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Disappearing Act: France in Recent Quebec Fiction Thursday, March 27 What does it take to be a distinct culture? In the case of Quebec, it has meant a declaration of separation from France, the beloved motherland that orphaned its New World colony at the signing of the 1763 Treaty of Paris. Adopted by the British throne, the bereft colony remained stubbornly loyal to its far-off parent, ensconcing in poetry, theatre and fictional narrative carefully preserved memories of the France it had lost. And then, one fine day, France faded from Quebec’s view. Instead of being French, Quebec became itself, distinct, separate and powerful. How did it happen? While it may appear to have been a sudden disappearing act, the fading of France from Quebec’s culture occurred over at least two generations, beginning with the generation that came of age in the late 1940s. By the middle of the 1970s, a new literary horizon had opened up in Quebec, a horizon that deliberately and literally erased France from its expanse. Three novels in particular, published over the ten-year period of 1974 to 1984, demonstrate this disappearing act. Une Liaison parisienne by Marie-Claire Blais, Régine Robin’s celebrated La Québécoite, and Michel Tremblay’s Des Nouvelles d’Edouard, each in its own way, put France in a picture from which that nation, along with its cultural prestige, was expressly erased. This presentation follows the erasure process that took France out of Quebec’s picture. Beginning with the historical context, we follow the process through the reception and ramification of the three novels that depict the disappearance of France from Quebec’s culture. A fast-forward leap into the present puts finishing touches on this drama in which Quebec rises from cultural remnant to cultural regent.
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