Language Contact and Literary Creativity: A Québec writer’s perspective

Daniel Gagnon (Montréal, Québec) [BIO]

Email: gagnon-barbeau.daniel@sympatico.ca

 

ABSTRACT:

In this paper, I will examine, drawn from my own practice as a francophone writer working in a Canadian bilingual and multilingual context, how language contact can be a source of literary creativity. In the 1980s, although French is my first language, in a desire to open up a new creative space, I wrote two novels directly in English: The Marriageable Daughter (Coach House Press, 1990) and My Husband the Doctor (unpublished). I subsequently translated both novels into French: La fille à marier (Leméac 1985) for which I won the Prix Molson de l’Académie des lettres du Québec, and Mon mari le docteur (Leméac 1986). I also used Italian as a creative stimulation for another work written and published in French, Venite a cantare (Leméac, 1990), which appeared in English as Divine Diva (Coach House Press, 1991), although I did not translate it myself. In this paper, I would like to use examples from the process of writing in the language of the other, the self-translating process of returning to my own language, and the use of another language within a literary text, to explore how this inter-linguistic movement can highlight issues in the exchange and sharing of cultural knowledge. Both the writing and self-translation process offer insights into cultural differences and commonalities. I will also touch briefly on the reception of the novels in each language. More specifically, I am interested in outlining the potential that this linguistic diversity has for opening up new sources of literary creativity.