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Abstract

EDITOR'S NOTE The special focus section of Volume 14 is devoted to issues of cultural pluralism that are emerging in an increasingly multiethnic, multiracial, multicultural Quebec. From Poland, Josef Kwaterko underscores the importance of culturally diverse literary readings and classroom discussions for immigrant students as well as for students born in Quebec who are interacting in a changing ethno-cultural environment. Robert Berrouët-Oriol and Robert Fournier collaborate on a study of the publishing patterns and subject matter of recent immigrant writing in Quebec. Simon Harel discusses the conflicting psychological state and unique cultural concerns the immigrant who writes in French often must face. The remaining essays in this section by Lucie Lequin, Christi Verduyn, and Jack Yeager examine the works of a number of immigrant women writers whose various ethnic identities and cultural ties outside Quebec have given rise to new themes and points of view in Quebec's literary landscape. All three critics note the significance of the themes of exile, nostalgia, and recovery of cultural identity in the works discussed. In our general literary studies section, David Leahy gives a Baktinian reading to Jean-Jules Richard's Le Feu dans l'amiante, Gérard Bessette's La Bagarre, and Pierre Gélinas's Les Vivants, les morts et les autres? Michael Klementowicz offers a feminist approach to Jacques Godbout's contemporary classic Salut Gahmeau! Two contemporary Canadian and Québécois plays are examined in André Loiselle's comparative study of Normand Chaurette's Provincetown Phyhouse, juillet 1919, j'avais 19 ans and Sharon Pollock's Biood Reiations. And Bénédicte Maugière considers the construction and meaning of feminine mythology in Hélène Ouvrard's Le Corps étranger. Our issue concludes with William Averyt's cogent analysis of recent economic developments in Quebec's energy industries and their implications for future economic planning and activity. Volume 15 of Québec Studies will feature a special dossier on "Writing Today: The New Generation." Karen Gould