Bilingual translation/writing as intercultural communication

This article explores the particular Canadian/Québec practice of bilingual "translating as writing" within the varied tradition of expatriate writing, and contemporary post-modern and post-colonial practices of the plurilingual text. The analysis focuses on two examples: Nancy Huston's Plainsong, published in French as Cantique des Plaines, and my own The Marriageable Daughter, published in French as La Fille à marier. Among the issues addressed are the context and motivation for this particular process of bilingual writing; the creative dimensions of inter-cultural writing; differences between the original and the translation in terms of transgression of literary conventions. As experiences of writing/ translating between two colonial cultures, both texts work towards decolonizing literary practice. More specifically, within their own Canadian/Québec intercultural context, they open up an unusual shared space for cultural exchange.