Suivre le lilas et l’engoulevent d’Amérique – vers une identité transmigrante dans La Route du lilas par Éric Dupont

Abstract

Éric Dupont’s latest novel has been acclaimed as a “feminist road-trip” and a “true feminist and horticultural fresco.” This article studies the concept of transmigrant identity as embodied by one of three main female characters: Maria Pia, a Brazilian on the run, tries to reach the Gaspé Peninsula in Québec, with the help of two Americans, Shelly and Laura, who, every year, follow the journey of the blossoming lilac in North America. The concept of transmigrant identity belongs to Gilles Dupuis who, after examining literary connections between the Quebec literary canon, the so-called “de souche,” and the migrant one, argues the existence of an identity which permeates the writing style. Maria Pia’s journey which links the north and south parts of the American continent fits the trans-American aesthetic project that I have defined as “the new Quebecois meta-narrative.”

Keywords:

• Éric Dupont
• filiation
• frontiers
• identité
• métarécit
• transmigrante

Notes

1 Paru en 2020 chez Harper Collins.

2 Selon l’expression de Gérard Bouchard, Mythes et sociétés des Amériques.

3 Pour citer Alain Beaulieu qui parlait de son roman Le Postier Passila dont l’action se déroule en Amérique Centrale.

4 Souligné dans le texte original.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simona E. Pruteanu

Simona E. Pruteanu is an Associate Professor of French in the Department of Languages and Literatures at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Her first book entitled Migrant Writing in France and in Quebec: A Comparative Analysis was published in 2013. She is also the co-editor of Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America. Multicultural Perspectives on Political, Cultural and Artistic Representations of Immigration. Her most recent article entitled “Islam and Far-Right Politics in Post-Contemporary Francophone Speculative Fiction: An Ethical Call to Resistance or Revival of French Orientalism?” will be published in the edited volume Crossroads in Artistic (Self)-Representations: Islam and Muslims in the Contemporary French and Francophone Context in 2021.