What is a Quebec writer? Is it a pure and hard Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, a Marie-Claire Blais who has spent a large part of her life in the United States, a Caroline Dawson who arrives like a bomb in the middle with a first book, or a writer Japanese French Academician who gives in the drawing like Dany Laferrière? The changes to the Status of the Artist Act, as well as the shift of the Union of Quebec Writers and Writers (UNEQ) towards a union, force us to (re) ask the question.
So what is a Quebec author? “He is the one who holds the intellectual authority over a work,” says Julien Lefort-Favreau, professor at Queen’s University and specialist in Quebec literature. ” The law [nouvelle sur le statut de l’artiste] involves the full spectrum of book writers, who are not necessarily literary authors, but who are now recognized as creators of copyright. »
The authors of gardening guides, recipe books, knitting pattern books will therefore soon be considered artists in the eyes of the law, where the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, for example, which financially supports the creation and creators, excludes them, since they do not produce works.
We have to see how this new law 35 will apply, how arbitrations will settle disputes, and how the UNEQ and the publishers will define the protected authors at each negotiated collective agreement, to finally know the form that these uses will give to the definition of Quebec author.
The artist’s legal imagination
For Mr. Lefort-Favreau, the author is also the person who signs “books that are not considered art. We must desacralize the notion of artist, and think rather in terms of producer of cultural objects. When we read “Law for artists”, we spontaneously think of a dancer or a painter, and for authors, authors of literature. But these historical categories, when we are in a legislative framework, are of no importance. »
According to Véronyque Roy, a law researcher at the Université de Sherbrooke, the authors subject to the application of future UNEQ collective agreements will be those whose contracts fall under the aegis of the Act respecting the status of artists, and who will also have the recognition of the UNEQ.
“The recognition published on the site of the Administrative Labor Tribunal provides that the UNEQ protects “all professional artists working in the field of literature in Quebec”. We therefore think of all the creators, in any language, who enter into agreements for remuneration related to their work in the Quebec book industry. Consider the publishing contract signed in Quebec. »
An author is as much the one who writes a manual as the poet, the essayist, or the one who makes a recipe book.
What to do then with the case of a Perrine Leblanc, who lives in Gaspésie and publishes with Gallimard in France, or a Christophe Bernard, who lives in Vermont and publishes in Quebec with the Quartanier? “If the law defines the author on the relationship with a Quebec broadcaster, that excludes all those who are on the margins”, answers Julien Lefort-Favreau, himself author of The luxury of independence (Lux).
For Véronyque Roy, the applicability of the Act is also governed by the rules of private international law provided for in the Civil Code of Québec. It is thus “not strictly linked to residence. This depends, among other things, on the terms of the contract, the place of delivery, etc. Provisions provide that Quebec laws of public order (which aim, among other things, to protect one of the parties to the contract) have priority over the contracts. »
Ricardo, this artist
“The artist as we perceive him in the imagination has nothing to do with the law, he does not exist”, continues Julien Lefort-Favreau. “If you want to defend artists, you can’t consider cultural hierarchies. It is necessary to rely on the material reality of the book, holder of the copyright and an ISBN”, this number which uniquely identifies each edition of each published book. “It is commercialization, legally, that makes cultural authority”, sums up the professor.
For Josée Vincent, sociologist of literature at the University of Sherbrooke, this ongoing redefinition of the status of the writer, and the redefinition of UNEQ itself, will be part of a transformation of the entire literary field.
“An author is as much the one who writes a manual as the poet, the essayist, or the one who writes a recipe book. These are such different writing practices… I don’t know how they’re going to be able to circumscribe them all,” wonders the co-director of the Historical dictionary of book people in Quebec (PUM). So let’s ask the question: today, how does the UNEQ plan to define professional Quebec authors?
Will it include English-speaking, self-published authors, translators? What will happen with Élise Gravel and Marianne Dubuc, who are both authors and illustrators? These questions “are part of the ongoing exchanges with the associations concerned”, replied Laurent Dubois, director general of the UNEQ.
All these questions are good, assures Julien Lefort-Favreau. “We are moving towards better recognition of all the producers of the content of a book, whether they are authors, translators, illustrators. We are going to protect the link that was the weakest, the one that was the least protected by the book chain, the one that has the least economic weight. »