Franco-American literature includes works written in English and French by French-Canadian American authors. These authors were born in New England or Canada, lived most of their lives in New England, or visited New England and wrote about their experiences. The term "Franco-American literature" also includes novels written by people from the Great Lakes Region who moved to new areas. In a broader sense, the term can also refer to writers of Cajun or French descent who are not part of the Quebec literary tradition.
This literature, written in English and in dialects like Quebec and New England French, is connected to cultural and literary movements that extend the ideas of La Survivance and Quebec literature among French-Canadian people living in New England, United States. Themes in this literature include folklore, societal values, and expressions of otherism. Some writers, especially those from the Late 20th century Revival, focused on showing how Franco-American people lived within American society. Earlier works often emphasized the importance of hard work, craftsmanship, and characters from Franco-American communities.
History
The earliest forms of Franco-American literature began with journalists. In 1839, Ludger Duvernay published Le Patriote Canadien while living in Burlington, Vermont, as a political exile to support the Patriote movement in nearby Canada. However, it was not until the height of the Great Migration that a journalist named Honoré Beaugrand published what is widely considered the first Franco-American novel, Jeanne la Fileuse ("Jeanne the Spinner"). After working as a journalist in St. Louis and New Orleans, Beaugrand started a newspaper called La République in Fall River in 1875. By then, he was already well-known in French-Canadian cultural groups in the city. Around 1877, he published Jeanne la Fileuse as a serial novel (or feuilleton) in his weekly paper. Among his many achievements, including recording the French-Canadian folk story La Chasse-galerie and serving as mayor of Montreal, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography described his novel as "his most important work." A social novel, it described the "Grand Migration" from Quebec and the living conditions of people in industrial cities in New England, showing how the main character’s family became wealthy in the United States. The novel criticized Canada’s government for not supporting agriculture and industry, which led to the migration. It was popular in both Canada and the United States, and Beaugrand republished it as a book in 1878. It was later reprinted in Montreal’s La Patrie in 1880 and again as a book in 1888.
Another early example of Franco-American writing that focuses on American subjects but has Canadian origins is Un revenant, épisode de la Guerre de Sécession aux États-Unis ("A Ghost, Episode of the War of Secession in the United States"). Though not well-known for its writing style, Rémi Tremblay’s autobiographical novel gives a unique view of the American Civil War from the perspective of a Québécois man who joined the Union Army.
By the end of the 19th century, French-language newspapers were common in New England, and they often published fiction in parts as serial novels. The term feuilleton, which usually described a section in newspapers with non-political news, became closely linked to this type of fiction in Franco-American newspapers.
After Jeanne la Fileuse was published, other novels were also released as feuilletons, appearing in newspapers over weeks or months. The most popular ones were later published as books, often by the same newspaper. One of the first women to publish a feuilleton in this genre was Anna-Marie Duval-Thibault, whose novel Les Deux Testaments was structured like a French soap opera but aimed to show customs in the New World. She published the feuilleton in her husband’s newspaper, L'Independente, in 1888. In the newspaper’s introduction, she wrote that the novel was inspired by a desire to contrast "the pens of French writers [which] offer us a picture of different customs unknown to most of our readers." She explained that Les Deux Testaments focused on Canadian life, which, in part, referred to the diaspora in the United States, as Duval-Thibault had lived outside Canada since she was three years old.
One of the most well-known writers of this time was Louis Tesson, who also ran a newspaper. He wrote three novels—Le Sang Noir ("The Black Blood"), Une idylle acadienne ("An Acadian Idyll"), and Un Roman Sans Amour ("A Novel Without Love")—in the 1890s. These were published in Le Messager, a newspaper in Lewiston, Maine. Tesson also created a method called le methode Tesson to help people who could not read learn how to read using a phonetic approach.
Between the two World Wars, this era was notable not only for its literature but also for the criticism it received. With support from Université Laval, Sister Mary-Carmel Therriault wrote the first full history of Franco-American literature in 1946. She also wrote about New England French, its institutions, journals, publishers, poetry, biographies, and folklore. However, her work did not praise the genre, instead describing it as a young literary movement that was not yet mature and was seen as a separate branch of Quebec literature with no major masterpiece.
At this time, there was growing support for the Franco-American community from people in Quebec. Although some had returned to Quebec, there were more Franco-American leaders in the church and press who were part of Canadian Francophone organizations. One example was the Second Congress on the French Language in Canada, which included a committee focused on preserving La Survivance and the bilingual institutions of New England French.
After the Second Congress, a proposal was made to create 12 regional committees in New England to help keep the culture alive and maintain connections with Quebec to protect the French language and La Survivance. This effort was recorded in a large book called La Croisade Franco-Américaine ("The Franco-American Crusade"), published at the end of the Congress. The book included proposals, poetry, and histories of French-Canadians who had long embraced the identity of New Englanders.
One of the best-known novels from this time was Canuck by Camille Lessard-Bissonette. Written as a feuilleton in 1936 for the French newspaper Le Messager in Lewiston, Maine, and set in Lowell, Massachusetts, at the time of its publication, its author managed the newspaper’s women’s section, "Chez-Nous." The feuilleton was later published as a single book and became so popular that a newspaper in Lawrence, Massachusetts, reprinted it the following year. The novel is described as having important historical, sociological, and literary value.
Another example from this period was Sanitorium by Dr. Paul Dufault. A fictionalized version of his own experiences, the novel is set in Rutland State Sanatorium in Rutland, Massachusetts. It was described in Montreal’s Le Jour as a "medical novel," the first of its kind from the Franco-American community. Later works, like Robert Cormier’s I Am the Cheese, echoed this theme. However, unlike stories about psychological institutions, Sanitorium focuses on patients in a tuberculosis ward, a subject the author knew well as a doctor, advocate, and former patient. He worked at the first state sanatorium established to treat tuberculosis and was the only Québécois member of its medical staff. He wrote in English for the New England Journal of Medicine and published the French-language novel at his own expense to raise awareness about the disease in both the United States and Canada. The novel is also unique because its main character, Dr. Lanoie, discusses social issues in both Quebec and the United States in his dialogue, describing medicine as both literally and metaphorically "l’œuvre."
Motifs
A common theme in many Franco-American novels before the modern era was "la survivance," which means the survival and protection of French culture. Sister Marie-Carmel Therriault, in her study of Franco-American literature, explained that the French language was often treated like a character in these stories. It was protected by people who left their homeland and now live in Quebec, especially journalists who worked to keep French traditions alive in North America. Some books focused on challenges faced by Franco-Americans as a group, while others shared personal stories. However, Therriault also pointed out that the group-focused nature of these works, especially before the time between World War I and World War II, had a downside. She wrote that these stories often lacked emotional struggles or personal conflicts. The main characters usually focused on adapting to a new life as immigrants in America. Later, writer Gérard Robichaud, inspired by the success of authors like Kerouac and Metalious, encouraged Franco-American writers to move beyond themes of moving to new places and blending into other cultures. He suggested they explore more universal ideas while still keeping their unique cultural identity.
Jeanne la Fileuse was a novel that discussed labor and class issues during its time. The Franco-American novel also often told historical stories, both about specific regions and the nation as a whole. Examples include Mirbah, which is set during a church fire, Un Revenant, a novel about the Civil War, and L'Heritage, which shows how American youth felt during the Vietnam War.
Other differences between Franco-American and Yankee or Anglo-American literature include contrasts shown in Vivian Parsons's book Lucien.
Critiques
Bilingual Latino literature has, over time, been able to take advantage of its position as a culture different from others and found a literary market that accepted their unique perspective. In contrast, few Franco-American novels, except for Jeanne de Fileuse, the first example of the genre, have truly gained recognition beyond their place of origin. Those who did, such as Jack Kerouac, Grace Metalious, Cathie Pelletier, and Robert Cormier, were part of other literary movements, not directly connected to Franco-American literature but influenced by it. Critic Armand Chartier noted that while Kerouac’s work was shaped by his French-Catholic background, his writing also showed the influence of the "coureur de bois," a French-Canadian term for a person who travels constantly. In contrast, Gérard Robichaud, author of Papa Martel, praised Kerouac for his ability to create an international reputation by exploring ideas beyond the theme of "survivance," which focuses on the survival of a culture.
Until the Third Generation, Franco-American literature focused more on describing communities than on individual characters. Sister Carmel, in her critical history, wrote that many novels from the Interwar Period studied the lives of regional communities in social novels rather than focusing on the struggles of main characters.
Most examples of Franco-American literature represented American literary regionalism, with some exceptions. In 1939, Funk and Wagnall’s published Jacques Ducharme’s The Delusson Family, the first Franco-American novel in English and the first written for a national audience. Though it did not earn enough to support its author financially, it was a modest success as a selection of the Catholic Book Club of the Jesuit magazine America. At the time, Ducharme noted that his publisher in New York City was unaware of the French presence in New England, despite being close to many Franco-American institutions. Another early example was Lucien by Vivian Parsons, set in Michigan and published months before The Delusson Family by Dodd, Mead & Co. Decades later, Doubleday allowed Robichaud’s Papa Martel to go out of print for many years, but the book remained popular in Maine and was later named one of the 100 most influential Maine books by the Baxter Literary Society of Portland in 2000.
By 1943, historian and writer Jacques Ducharme had collected 400 books written by Franco-Americans, including nearly 50 volumes of poetry and prose. However, because many Franco-Americans were millworkers, they were not connected to the literary world in the same way as other writers. Historian Richard Santerre noted that few Franco-American novels were publicly available, with some titles, like Les Deux Testaments by Duval-Thibault, only found in private collections. Many short stories were published only in French-language newspapers or paperback pamphlets, so few copies of the genre remained in circulation, even though their titles were known. Santerre and the NMDC tried to fix this by republishing some rare books in the 1970s, but because their mission was educational rather than commercial, many foundational works, including those in Santerre’s 9-volume anthology, were not widely distributed.
"Franco-American literature" has been separated from Yankee New England literature and Quebec literature by some definitions, but it also overlaps with both. In the 20th century, critics had different opinions about whether such works could be considered their own genre. French-Canadian writer Louis Dantin, who lived in Boston and published in Quebec, once said, "There is no Franco-American literature and there never will be." Later, he used the term "Franco-American" to describe The Delusson Family but questioned whether author Jacques Ducharme was participating in the intellectual life of his adopted country. Ducharme was criticized for writing his debut novel in English but later expressed sadness about the lack of Franco-American poets and novelists.
Franco-Americans sometimes used French-Canadian folklore, such as the story of Jos Montferrand, a figure associated with strength among immigrants, and Honoré Beaugrand, who wrote the famous version of La Chasse-galerie. However, Franco-American tastes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were more influenced by France than Canada, as Jacques Ducharme noted. He wrote that cultural efforts from France helped Franco-Americans return to their roots in France rather than Canada, as French-Canadian literature had little influence in New England.
Some works, like Jeanne de Fileuse, were accepted by critics and became important in both Quebec and Franco-American literature. In recent years, the novel has been seen more as a key piece in defining what Franco-American literature is rather than just a social commentary. Some Franco-American novels showed emigration to New England as temporary, while others, like The Delusson Family, suggested permanency. In Mill Village, the family returns to Quebec. Another example is Thirty Acres (Trente arpents), a significant novel in Quebec literature that also comments on the industrialization of New England. The son of the protagonist leaves his family’s farmland to work in American textile mills and questions whether Quebecois identities can remain in the United States.
Notable works
Although many short stories and novels are less well-known, several novels from both American and Canadian authors have been published first in French and later in English. These works have helped define the term "Franco-American literature."