Quebec was still bickering with the second pandemic wave when another wave, of a completely different nature, swept over the province. Released in November 2020, Where I landCaroline Dawson’s first novel, invited us to the vibrant story of a Chilean family who, fleeing the Pinochet regime, found refuge in Quebec.
In the process, this first title revealed a charismatic woman, whose assertive and inspiring words seek to establish bridges between beings. After the phenomenal success of Where I landnotably winner of the Literary Prize for college students and finalist for the Booksellers’ Prize, the author invites us in poetry, with what are you.
For the occasion, The duty met her at home, in this living room adjoining the kitchen, frozen in the generous February light. Soon the children would be back, swirling around in this sleepy kitchen, shaking up the neatly arranged games and threatening the columns of school notebooks that pose on the desk. But for the moment, the apartment rests in a serenity, where the free speech of the professor of sociology bathes in light.
Homecoming notebooks
Arrived in Quebec at the age of seven, she recounts having rediscovered, through her boy, the little girl she was then: “I started writing that at the same time as Where I land, not knowing what I was going to do with it. Finally, I realized that my son was going to be 7 years old and that I saw myself in him. And I wanted to take him in my arms, to hug the child that I was. In Where I land, I did not see the little girl. And it struck me how small I was when I arrived. »
This project, created in parallel with his first novel, remained for a long time in the state of scraps, scattered in many notebooks: “Me, I write in lead pencil. I carefully choose my notebooks, but I end up misplacing them and I find myself with a project scattered in twelve notebooks. I write badly, I cross out, I put arrows to redo the sequences. I’m sure I won’t show this to anyone. »
She gladly makes fun of it, of this wide and whole laughter, as the birds spread their wings to fly away. Then she regains her seriousness and reveals a secret to us: “Me, I find consistency from my title. It’s my way of working. Once I found the title, I am faithful to it. And that’s how, title in hand, that the project was set up. »
The silence through the other
Under the circumstances, it should come as no surprise that the title is so evocative. what are you is the story of everything that Caroline Dawson “had the instinct to keep quiet: exile, racism, shame”. Carried by a poetry that gives pride of place to the story, the collection is divided into three parts where, after having bathed in her childhood, from Chile to Montreal, we find this mother who frees her story from the silent shame in which she was lurking, in order to offer it as an inheritance to his son.
She admits, it was not easy to undo the folds of this story. She writes: “I don’t know how to turn / my funeral / into nursery rhymes”. Avoiding his children the heaviness of this story has long been the pretext for his silence: “It is a subject that I did not approach at home. Obviously, it’s not an easy subject that you broach between two St-Huberts: “Hey, my darlings, I was a refugee and I pulled myself out of a country where children were disappearing.” »
It was by observing her husband recounting his past with pride and casualness that she became aware of the inequality that this generated: “I realized that my children only had a part of their history. That mine was shameful, hidden. I wanted to clean it up, undo the shame of my story, and I told myself that my son was necessarily old enough to understand because he was the age I was when I arrived here, but I didn’t know how to do it. take. »
It was about finding a way to say it, but it was also about finding a way to untie the shame. However, rediscovering the path of speech would reveal unexpected obstacles to him: “In the long run, I understood that I was ashamed of being ashamed. And I didn’t want to bequeath that knot to my son. I wanted to bequeath this story to him, because that’s what it is, after all: a story. And that’s what he is too. It’s inside of him. »
Caroline Dawson writes again: “today I told you about the refugee, the distraught heteroceres. / I told you about fachos, tear gas, guanacos, scorpion venom, torture, murderers, missing persons. / I have told you what you are”. Alongside these harsh words, she sings light images, where her son embodies a radiant future: “your mustard sandwich breath / your blue popsicle beaks”. Finally, she seems the first to be surprised that this story can be held in so few words: “What came out of this story, which seemed so long to me, is poetry. An economy of words. »
The end of shame
This family history expands further, since it was Nicholas Dawson, his brother, who provided literary direction: “When I wrote where i earth, I asked him: “Do you think it is publishable?” He said to me, “Yes, go ahead.” And in the same way, when I wrote what are youI sent him the manuscript. Where I land hadn’t appeared yet, plus it was poetry, a writing that I’m less comfortable with. And that’s when he replied: “Not only is it publishable, but it would be an honor if you wanted to do it with me.” »
While her cat, Jackal, parades proudly between us, demonstrating her most beautiful meows and squeezing a few laughs from us, she insists on saying how much her brother “took care of the manuscript”. According to her, the book, as it stands, would not have been possible without him: “In the end, I don’t see who else could have accompanied me like that. Because he was careful, but at the same time he was forcing me to go where I didn’t want to go, and there was no other person who could have done it. Because I would have taken it differently with others. »
After all, Caroline lived this story alongside her brother. With him, among other things, that she found “the carelessness of childhood and its freedom”. A carelessness and a freedom to which is now added a charged story, where exile and racism can be told and said. A story that she is happy to offer to her son, adopting an approach once adopted by Pablo Neruda, a great Chilean poet, in his poem The son “You come from so many places, / from water and earth, / from fire and snow, / you walk from so far away / in front of both of us, / from this terrible love / which has chained, / that we want to know / how you are, yes, speak: / you know better this world / than we gave you. »