Abstrakt

Tina Mouneimné-Wojtas

Écritures migrantes: Quebecois challenge.

The essay analyzes écritures migrantes as a quebecois literary discourse relating both to the writing of immigrants and to migrant writing which is more metaliterary and aesthetic than sociological. The text examines a socio-cultural context of the development of écritures migrantes in the years 1980–2000 and particularly its ideological factors, writing strategies and aesthetic challenges in the society which for years has been struggling for identity in the English American continent. The author explores the extraliterary and literary reasons for the emergence of the migrant writing and also the challenges that both writers and critics of this literature have been facing. She poses many questions relating to the transcultural condition of writers associated with écritures migrantes and discusses problems of identity, literary tradtion, choice of themes and language of writing as well as expectations of readers. She points to many factors dividing the writers (national origin, language, education, gender, generation, writing practice) but also reveals the linking element which is a confrontation with the quebecois literary system (with its institutions consecrating and legitimizing literature such as academic and press criticism, system of awards and subsidies or inclusion in or withdrawal from school curricula). The impact of immigration on écritures migrantes is, as the essay argues, indisputable, but the fact of self-interpretation and its role in the construction of identity is also a crucial factor. The term “challenge” relates to the traditional approach of critics to writing which still belongs to the sphere of “otherness”.