Writing in French across languages

I was invited to speak at “Écrire en français. Histoires de langues, voyages de mots,” a public conference and exhibition held at Sorbonne Université Abu Dhabi. Bringing together scholars of translingual francophone writing, the event examined why authors from different linguistic backgrounds choose French as a language of literary expression and how these works can also reshape the teaching of language and literature.

My presentation, “La littérature innue de langue française au Québec : réception et négociation culturelle” [Innu French-Language Literature in Quebec: Reception and Cultural Negotiation], focused on the place of French in works by Innu writers from Quebec, with particular attention to An Antane Kapesh and Joséphine Bacon. Through these texts, I reflected on French not simply as a colonial language, but also as a medium of negotiation, transmission, and poetic reinvention within Indigenous literary traditions.