Analysis of a diaspora community in French-Canadian literature: the immigrants from Eastern Europe

The presence of immigrants from Eastern Europe in French-Canadian literature, either as subject or as object of narration, is the starting point for exploring the possible intercultural links that immigrants set up and for analysing the representation of the "other". We have selected the works of four women writers: Gabrielle Roy and Myriam Beaudoin, of Canadian origin, and Regine Robin and Olga Boutenko, belonging to the so-called "immigrant literature". Their comparison, characters in the first case and narrators in the second one, leads us to conclude that the search for a space of their own, liberty and representation are recurring elements in this specific context, where the notion of identity, which has always been problematic, must be reconstructed.