Commemorating Quebec and opening up to La francophonie
Auguste Viatte — Franco-Swiss professor of French literature at the University Laval from 1933 to 1949, pioneer of the history of Francophone literature and leader of the France Libre à Québec movement during the Second World War —discovered Quebec during the 1932 Christmas period. He wrote about this first trip in an unpublished text entitled “Voyage au Canada.” Established in Quebec as of the summer of 1933, he wrote down his first impressions in some notes and through his correspondence upon arrival. Back in Europe more than twenty years later, between 1956 and 1957, Viatte in a fourth attempt finally wrote his memoirs. Entitled Facettes d’une vie, this book, never to be published, was based on his private journal and his archive holding an extensive body of correspondence. The autobiography has many long passages dedicated to Viatte’s discovery of Quebec at the beginning of the 1930s, including, with the third section of the book, “Bonheur du Canada,” a literary account of his first trips to Quebec and his gradual discovery of La Belle Province. In a later stage of his life, namely his most prolific period as a writer, he undertook to refine his vision of Quebec society. Returning from Quebec, Viatte then immersed himself in a long period of acculturation in his host country, which allowed him to relive his initial discoveries and feelings as a traveller discovering this Francophone land of America.