Traces of New France in Né à Québec by Alain Grandbois: Colonial imagination and literary history

In 1933, before he was known as a poet, Alain Grandbois published an awkward book in Paris. Being at the same time an historical narrative, a romanced biography, and an adventure novel, it was based on the life of explorer Louis Jolliet (1645-1700). Although deterritorialized both by its place of publication and its author's anonymity, Né Québec nevertheless materializes a certain state of the imaginary of New France, as it was thought of in well-read circles in Quebec in the beginning of the twentieth century. Based on original texts from the seventeenth century as well as scholarly publications, which are often made visible in the intertextual plays, Né Québec gives the reader a rather clear idea about the vivacity colonial heroes still had in the imaginary of the French Canadian elite. After an intertextual analysis and a quick survey of the critical reception of the novel (1933-2007), I will reflect on the traces of New France in Quebec's literary history