Quebec is everywhere.
Or rather, wherever I go, Quebec culture is omnipresent.
Like millions of tourists, I love visiting Japan. That’s why I boarded the plane one day, unprepared, for an invitation to Tokyo by the Japanese Association for Quebec Studies. I found myself in a university classroom in the heart of this fascinating megalopolis. To my surprise, in front of many narrow rows of long tables, the first Japanese teacher presented for an hour in impeccable French his work on the Nordicity of the language of Gaston Miron. The second, just as rigorous, analyzed Anne Hébert’s phrasal punctuation. The third continued with the feminization of titles. The afternoon continued at the same pace with the same curiosity for Quebec literature.
The next day, I was invited in front of a class of more than 100 students registered in a course devoted solely to Quebec. Then, in Kanda, a city about an hour by train from Tokyo, some students from another course on English-speaking Canadian and Quebec culture came to greet me by proudly showing me their t-shirts from the restaurant La Banquise where they had ate poutine at 3am.
In New Delhi, Professor Alex Noël received me in his Quebec literature class, while in Bombay (Mumbai), Professor DD Vidya Vencatesan extended our meeting in my hotel room accompanied by some of her students. Another teacher in Jaipur returns regularly to Quebec with her husband and son to immerse herself in a culture that she has been teaching with affection and attachment for ten years.
In Romania, in Iase, a town near the border with Moldova, a long conversation followed by a long meal where many shared their favorite Quebec books, often enriched with quotes and anecdotes that reinforced their unconditional ties and love for this place where lived a cousin, a brother, an aunt.
At the Book Fair in Kyiv before the war, the best-selling books at that time bore Quebec names: The weight of the snow by Christian Guay-Poliquin and more than one book by Larry Tremblay. In Germany, India Desjardins accompanies young people while Michel Jean joins the left and the right through the center. Of more than 60,000 new titles released in France each year, Antoine Desjardins has carved out a place for himself since his first book, as has Kevin Lambert, to name but two.
The Poetry Museum in Edinburgh has a section of collections of poems by our most illustrious Quebec poets and poetesses, while a room in the heart of Peking University (Beijing) was reserved for Quebec books only. In 2023, the Dublin Literary Award, which only considers books submitted by librarians from 80 countries, selected 70 books. In this prestigious list, THREE Quebec writers are found.
I have witnessed so many lively and interested discussions in private or in public about our way of doing and thinking in Warsaw, in Suzhou, in Brussels, in Bangkok, in Bremen, in Taipei, in Wisconsin, in Bogotá , in Reims, in Mantova, in Mexico City, in Périgord, in Princeton, in Angoulême, in Madison, in Geneva… theses and dissertations Marie-Claire Blais, Michel Tremblay, Louis Hémon, Dany Laferrière, Naomi Fontaine, Hubert Aquin, Michel Marc Bouchard, Joséphine Bacon…
Why is the voice of Quebec so coveted? If listened to? So widespread?
My answer was revealed perhaps around a coffee in Vernon where people from five continents put forward the idea that freedom is to the United States what equality is to France. In this momentum, they asked me what would be the sign of Quebec. As it had to be reduced to a word, I chose humility. The humility of not thinking that the Quebec model of freedom and equality is unique or that we have all the answers, quite the contrary. We are eager to learn. We cross physical and cultural borders with the openness of adventurers and the politeness of pilgrims.
We forge our collective identity by welcoming the reflections of some, by listening to the customs of others, by fully embracing the unusual and innovation. We allow ourselves the freedom of intuitions and the audacity of desires. We move forward with the fervor of the curious and the resourcefulness of the patentees, while keeping calm and respect for the benevolent.
Perhaps my colleagues found me somewhat chauvinistic, but they all nodded enthusiastically, even expressing the wish that Quebec-style humility would become contagious.
To tell the truth, I give myself the right to be quietly proud. We are 8,787,554 people walking arm in arm with a quiet and resilient strength. We are 8,787,554 to receive the whole world in our arms with a quiet and deep assurance. We are 8,787,554 to sow our Quebec identity with all the winds with a quiet and anchored, grandiose humility.