ABSTRACTS

From Littérature voyageuse to Littérature-mondevia migrant literatures: a Franco-Australian comparative perspective

Jacqueline Dutton
(University of Melbourne)

Writing about travel means writing about the world. Whether a panoramic description of imperialist nostalgia for the exotic, or an intricate examination of passages through proximity, traveling literatures take us beyond the insular contemplations of the everyday and (re)place us in the context of the wider world.

This link between the Pour une littérature voyageuse and the Littérature-monde manifestos is an obvious one, underscored by the main instigator of both movements, Michel Le Bris. However, the evolution from travel writing to world literature is neither automatic nor inevitable. Judging from the timing of the Littérature-monde manifesto, following the ground-breaking revelation that in 2006, five of France's seven major literary awards went to foreign-born writers of literature in French, it seems that migrant literatures were the necessary catalyst to effect the transition away from the colonial associations of travel writing towards the postcolonial perspectives of world literature.

In this paper, I will consider the role of migrant literatures as a validating stage in the process of reinterpreting Littérature voyageuse as Littérature-monde. I will suggest that migrant literatures represent a kind of passport required to allow travel writing entry into world literature. Through reference to writings in French on Australia and writings from Australia on France, I will seek to demonstrate that migrant literatures provide the key to transforming writing about travel into literature that takes in/on the world.

Before undertaking the Franco-Australian comparative study, I will firstly explore the debate on the status of migrant narratives as travel writing. Drawing on my experience as creator and director of the inaugural Melbourne Festival of Travel Writing (19-20 July 2008) in which I have programmed several authors of migrant travel writing, and also through analyzing both migrant narratives and more traditional travel texts on Australia and France, I will attempt to reconcile polarized attitudes to immigration and travel.

The texts in French include Moroccan born Algerian author, Anouar Benmalek's celebrated historical novel L'Enfant du peuple ancien (2000), which recounts the unlikely meeting of an Arab prince exiled from Algeria, a French Communarde deported to New Caledonia and a Tasmanian Aboriginal on board a boat bound for Australia in 1872. David Fauquemberg's Nullarbor (2007) is a more traditional travelogue, tracing the French author's journey to Australia, winning the inaugural prix Nicolas Bouvier in 2007 and voted best travel text by Lire magazine in 2008. From the Australian angle, I will examine Gail Jones'(auto)fictional account of an Australian academic in Paris, Dreams of Speaking (2006) and Josiane Behmoiras's Dora B: A Memoir of my Mother/My Mother was a Bag Lady (2006), which relates the troubled itinerary of a Jewish mother and daughter from Paris to Montpellier, their deportation to Israel and separation before the author finally settles in Melbourne.

Using these texts as examples, I will endeavor to show that it is only through integrating migrant narratives into the genre of travel writing that traveling literatures can be reinvented and find their place in the wider sphere of world literature. Migrant literatures might therefore be considered a passport for literature to travel the world.