Encounters avec l'Autre in Contemporary Montreal Literature: Aspects of Francophone-Anglophone Interactions at the Turn of the New Millennium

Type of resource
Author/collaborator
Title
Encounters avec l'Autre in Contemporary Montreal Literature: Aspects of Francophone-Anglophone Interactions at the Turn of the New Millennium
Abstract
The author examines how contemporary Quebec literature broaches English-French relations years after such pivotal events in Quebec history as the Quiet Revolution, the FLQ crisis, the implementation of Bill 101 and the two referenda on independence. She focusses on Neil Bissoondath and Monique Proulx, two Quebec authors who have scrutinised interactions between Anglophones and Francophones in present-day Montreal and translated cultural memory in their works of narrative fiction. Reading Montreal literature as a contact zone, where Self and Other meet and grapple with each other, the author's study shows how the clashes with l’Autre leave each side modified, usually for the better. In Bissoondath's novel, Doing the Heart Good (2002), the protagonist and first-person narrator Alistair Mackenzie takes a retrospective look at his life, during which the unilingual Anglophone has frequently been forced to deal with Francophones. Proulx also places her characters in situations in which they encounter alterity and alienation in her short story collection Les Aurores montréales (1996). In addition to the Anglophone/Francophone "Other," Proulx depicts immigrants in her short narratives and how they participate in Montreal's linguistic duality.
Place
Stuttgart, Germany
Publisher
Ibidem
Date
2011
# of Pages
141p.
Language
en
ISBN
978-3-8382-0243-3
URL
Citation
Rudig, Stefanie. Encounters Avec l’Autre in Contemporary Montreal Literature: Aspects of Francophone-Anglophone Interactions at the Turn of the New Millennium. Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem, 2011. http://www.austria-canada.com/Paper2010.pdf.
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