“For a long time, we did not think of translating but of correcting”: marginalized for years, Quebec literature is finally flourishing in France, in its own language, without translation or “francization” thanks to the meticulous work of French and Quebec publishers.
“We are witnessing a real boom,” enthuses Anne-Isabelle Tremblay, head of the Quebec bookstore in Paris, with AFP. Owned by the Canadian government, this bookstore has been promoting and distributing the literature of this French-speaking province of Canada for more than 25 years.
The fact remains that, from the memory of a librarian, the current craze is new: novels, essays, comics… The stalls of booksellers are overflowing with this literature, both so close to France in its language but also so distant in its imagination. North American.
Last to have been talked about? Comics author Julie Doucet, winner of the Angoulême Festival Grand Prix in mid-March, the most prestigious award in comics. She is the first consecrated Canadian and Quebecer.
In the fall, another Quebecer caused a stir: novelist Kevin Lambert, finalist for the Prix Médicis with You’ll love what you killed (Ed. The New Attila).
“There has always been a little contempt”
Not to mention the 2020 Renaudot essay prize, awarded to Dominique Fortier for paper towns, about the American poet Emily Dickinson. A consecration for this literature, long shunned by French literary prizes.
Because if French-speaking authors from the Maghreb or sub-Saharan Africa are regularly praised – Tahar Ben Jelloun, Prix Goncourt 1987, Djaïli Amadou Amal, Goncourt des lycéens 2020, or Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Goncourt 2021 – it is far from being the case of Quebec literature.
“There has always been a bit of contempt for this literature and its language”, assures AFP Lola Nicolle, editor at the young publishing house Les Avrils. With Sandrine Thévenet, they published two texts by Quebec feminist Martine Delvaux in early March: The world is yours and Firefighters and arsonists.
Moreover, continues Lola Nicolle, “for a long time we did not think of translating but of correcting” a language then deemed difficult to understand by the French readership. “Today, things are changing because Quebec publishers are increasingly assertive, dare to demand more. No more question for them to accept that their language is destroyed”.
“For us, it is important to affirm the legitimacy of the Quebec language. We are ready to adapt on a case-by-case basis, but it is important to help create a habit in the reader,” adds Sébastien Dulude, Quebec publisher at La Mèche.
“Goldsmith’s work”
His publishing house sold the rights to the book Burgundy, a grating autofiction by Mélanie Michaud about her childhood in a poor neighborhood of Montreal, at JC Lattès. Released in early March in France, the book has been adapted to the margins.
The goal ? Let the Quebec language live. His expressions like his words in English. Only those that could cause confusion have been changed. “It was a work of goldsmith”, underlines with AFP the editor Constance Trapenard. “No question of translating or distorting, we worked hand in hand with Sébastien”, the Quebec publisher.
Same tone or almost at the publishing house Stock which published at the beginning of January Waterfowlby Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba, who left everything to live in a cabin in the Quebec forest, as she tells in her first book Encabanée.
“At no time did I say to myself that it was necessary to translate”, tells its editor Raphaëlle Liebaert to AFP. Neither translation nor “francization”, a simple glossary thought up by the author and the editor allows the reader, if he so wishes, to immerse himself in the singularity of the language at the end of his reading.
Each time, reminds Anne-Isabelle Tremblay, “it must be a common and joint work between the publishers and the author. After all, isn’t that what we call respect for creative work? »