'Postcolonial' or 'transcolonial'? Canadian speculative fiction in French and English and the comparative dimension of the New English literatures

This essay addresses the problems of assimilating postcolonial literatures into the field of English and Cultural Studies. It argues that it is possible to improve our understanding of the 'new' English literatures by giving particular emphasis to inter- and transcultural perspectives and posits a comparative model of analysis aimed at reducing the risk of incorporating western critical prejudices into postcolonial studies. The particular nature and the imaginative potential of mutual exchanges between texts and cultural ensembles will be clarified by adducing examples from Anglophone and Francophone Canadian speculative writing. The term transcolonial will be introduced as a critical category indicating a space of discursive conflict in literary texts with no definable material or sociological referent and as a valuable criterion to assess the relevance of comparative methodologies to the ongoing process of globalization.