ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to investigate the role of the French language in the work Lettres parisiennes: histoires d’exil (1986) by the Canadian writer Nancy Huston and the Algerian writer Leïla Sebbar. It examines how exile influences the writing of these authors and also how this geographical and cultural movement gives rise to questions about the role of language, the place of women in society, and the opposition of the center versus the border. In this correspondence project, which lasted about three years, Huston and Sebbar trace pictures of themselves, addressing themes such as daily life, childhood, loves, passion for books, and peer into the bonds of the past, more precisely, the complex relationships that are woven between the parent language and the mother tongue, the native country and the land of the other, and finally, about oneself and the foreigner. These tracks, only evident in their writings, are what we seek to examine.
Keywords:
exile; french language; writing