The Fictionalization of History in the Literature, Urban Planning and Art of Quebec: From the Search of an Origin to Transnationalism and Counter-Hegemonic Globalization

Abstract

The article analyzes the changes that took place in Québec in the field of the fictionalization of History at the turn of the 20th/21st centuries. Its central hypothesis sustains that the last three decades of the 20th century witnessed a cognitive vocation that developed in close connexion with the process of identity construction and that privileged the return to the Québécois historical past. This phenomenon was evident in the canonical novel (Jacques Godbout, Jacques Folch-Ribas), the best-seller (Arlette Cousture, Louis Caron), the theatre (Roland Lepage, Jean Provencher) and the documentary (Jacques Godbout); it was also manifest in urban planning (Place Royale) and gave origin to the historical murals that celebrated the change of Millennium. In the 21st Century, the historical contents and the cognitive vocation have changed their emphasis to suit the epistemological and ideological developments referred to by Boaventura de Sousa Santos as a counter-hegemonic globalization, which was expressed in strongly transnational literatures and visual arts. From this perspective, the article focuses on the novelBeatrice & Virgil (2010) by Yann Martel, the play Incendies by Wajdi Mouawad and the work of the Québécois finalists of the Prix Artistique Sobey 2010 ( Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal), all instances that challenge the geopolitical, cultural and even linguistic criteria to define literary/artistic identities