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| OOTW Home | Quebec Fantasy and Science Fiction |
Very little "high" or "heroic" fantasy has been written in Quebec. Instead the fantastic elements appear in otherwise realistic settings.
Literature portraying the intrusion of the fantastic into the everyday has come to be called the fantastique. The reader is required to make a dramatic mental shift and to search for the allegorical and symbolic elements in the tale.
Its history begins with Philippe Aubert de Gaspé's Le chercheur de trésors; ou, L'Influence d'un livre published in 1878. The genre became specifically popular with writers in the 1960s, a period when writers generally sought to challenge the conventions of literature and realism.
Selected Tales of Jacques Ferron
Bednarski, Betty (translator)
Toronto: Anansi, 1984.
This collection of tall tales by the founder of the Rhinoceros Party speaks with apparent realism of a world in which angels come to earth, animals talk to people and trees think.
Cover reproduced with the permission of Stoddart Publishing Co. Limited, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada.
Les Princes
Benoit, Jacques
Montréal: Stanké, 1981.
In a town with four very different neighbourhoods, there live human beings, monsters and dogs, with each group divided into classes. When a blue (poor) man kills a dog by accident, he eats it and encourages his neighbours to do likewise. The dogs are sacred animals protected under the law; they are also intelligent and will protect themselves.
Courtesy of Stanké.
Carcajou
Leclerc, Félix
Montréal: Éditions du Jour, 1973.
The contest between God and the Devil forms a rough backdrop for the some 60 stories, portraits and anecdotes drawn from the author's own experience and, sadly, from current headlines.
La Ville fabuleuse
Major, Henriette
Saint-Lambert, Québec: Les Éditions Héritage, 1982.
While exploring a cave, two children find a fabulous city inhabited by robots.
Courtesy of Les Éditions Héritage.
Un, deux, trois
Turgeon, Pierre
Montréal: Les Quinze, 1980.
A journalist wants to write two articles: one on the closing of the Domtar lime kiln at Saint-Maurice-des-Carrières, his hometown, and one on a circus that is camping at Brémondville. The articles are slowly invaded by fiction, childhood illusions, dreams, spectacle, drugs, the economy and death.
Mourir comme un chat
Yance, Claude-Emmanuelle
Québec: L'Instant même, 1987.
The ten short stories in Mourir comme un chat recount ten intimate moments, sometimes with implacable realism and sometimes in an openly fantastic manner. The author, who writes with subtlety and finesse, has chosen the short story as a way to explore various metaphysical issues.
Les Éditions de L'instant même.
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Copyright. The National Library of Canada. (Revised: 1995-06-17)