Abstract

The social and cultural fabric of Québec has been profoundly transformed for about twenty years. Québec, and in particular Montréal, have now become increasingly plural. As countries of immigration, Canada and the United States have established and recognized traditions of immigrant and minority literature. But for Canada this tradition has been mainly if not exclusively expressed in English. The historical context of Quebec literature, reflecting the close association between the French language and a single cultural community, made the inclusion of minority voices within the framework of the Quebec literary institution impossible until recently. Certainly, in the younger generation, as in the previous ones, identities are still only defined by starting from a pre-established cultural and family background, perhaps Québécoise, but perhaps also Haitian, Algerian, Chinese, or Polish. In an almost irreversible way, the borders move or are reduced. It is necessary to remember that integration is created slowly, like stratifications that are layered one on top of the other. The immigrant, be s/he man or woman, becomes "illiterate" again, forced to learn new codes in all fields. This recurring image highlights the difficulty of the immigrant who rapidly has to decode a new culture: sometimes it means his survival. As Québec literature begins to look forward by undertaking exploratory journeys to "foreign" lands, difference at home has become the province of minority writers. The provocative blend of continuity and difference, affiliation and dissidence expressed in the work of these writers, as well as the importance they give to language, mark this writing as a significant development in Quebec literature.