Author: NATALIE EDWARDS and CHRISTOPHER HOGARTH
The French Australian Review No 67 (Australian Summer 2019-2020): 46-63.
https://doi.org/10.62586/WKXM3649
This article reads the work of Catherine Rey and Marie-Paule Leroux as examples of French-Australian migrant literature. It compares the way these two writers, both of whom moved to Australia from France in mid-life, portray their migration in their literary texts. Reading their work through the lens of recent migration theory, it argues that these texts depart from paradigms that position France as the centre, that place Paris or an alternative urban space as the ultimate destination, or that stage movement between former colony and colonial power. The two writers practise, in different ways, a strategic exoticism that renders their texts attractive to specific audiences within France and Australia.
Keywords: Catherine Rey, Marie-Paule Leroux, migration, transnationalism, exoticism, Global French Literature