Identity and Difference in the Quebec Novel after 1967

IN QUEBEC, the massive sociopolitical and cultural changes of the 1960s and the consolidation of the liberal État-providence in the 1970s saw a great overlap of culture and politics. The linkage was, in fact, so significant that in the 1980s, after the failure of the referendum for independence, many intellectuals and writers would reflect nostalgically on the previous two decades. They detected a general disengagement in the literature of the 1980s. The literary critic Gilles Marcotte even spoke of a “génération en deuil de ce qui la précède et de ce qui ne pourra pas advenir,” a “génération qui refuse une conscience historique ou un horizon,” and he criticized its “bonne humeur tranquille dans le malheur même, dans le dénuement, dans l'absence de raisons.” It is, however, only partially true that the literature of the 1960s and early 1970s was an all-embracing testimony of solidarity, the mouthpiece of an emancipating “nous québécois,” liberating itself from outdated moral concepts and striving for independence. Literary criticism has often overemphasized the idea of the collective in the literature dedicated to the spirit of the Révolution tranquille, and has tended to neglect those texts that focus on the individual. Particularly with respect to fiction, it is necessary to highlight the impressive breadth of themes and forms in which the individual regains importance.