Littératures migrantes: concept d’un champ littéraire excentrique
Migrant Literatures: Concept from an Excentric Literary Field

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on the concept of migrant literatures as it was developed by literary studies in Quebec at the beginning of the 1980s. It examines the conditions that led to the emergence of the notion, such as the historical evolution, immigration policies and linguistic specificity, and compares it with the situation in France, where such a concept was not considered by literary theory until recently and still meets with a certain resistance to multiculturalism. Hybridity is a key term to define migrant literatures, a term that emerged alongside postmodernism, and contributes to reconsidering the traditional boundaries of national literatures, often based on a uniform vision of history and a territorial perspective of space. On a literary level, the emergence of migrant literatures can be attributed to the tendency, in Quebec literature, towards exile, as it represents itself in an excentric perspective. As such, it fosters a close relationship with alterity and welcomes multiple identities. Quebec literature has also been described as adventureless, mostly representing an idyll sheltered from the outer world. This paper suggests that this also can promote a fertile ground for migrant writers, whether they need a refuge from a difficult experience or can offer the adventure missing from the general trend of works.

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