Literatures of Exile and Return : Jack Kerouac and Quebec

Literatures of Exile and Return : Jack Kerouac and Quebec

Critical article exploring two of Jack Kerouac's novels - "Doctor Sax" and "Satori in Paris" - in a way that emphasizes the importance of Kerouac's "translingual" identity, cultural heritage, and his relationship to the diasporic history of the people of Québec and French Canada. How Québec literary scholarship has elevated Kerouac's prose to a level unmatched in the United States, where the author argues little attention has been paid to the influence of Kerouac's cultural and linguistic identity on his American writing. A comparative close-reading of Québec writer Jacques Poulin's novel, "Volkswagen Blues," and the various debts it owes to Kerouac.

Melehy, Hassan

2012-09

en

Journal Article

20th century; Lowell, Massachusetts

Journal Article

10.1215/00029831

0002-9831 (print)

1527-2117 (online)

3

589-615

American Literature

84