ANY THE EAST : MARGUERITE DURAS, LAFERRIÈRE AND MONTESQUIEU

Abstract

The 20th century French writer, Marguerite Duras, has an important place in French contemporary literature. The author’s childhood experiences in the French colony of Indochina, yield a series of works that concern Asia, with an “Oriental” exotic atmosphere, converging with the author’s narrative approach. Is this Orient the same Orient depicted by Dany Laferrière or Montesquieu (Persian Letters)? Eschewing all national and racial labels, Laferrière has famously stated that: “I am from my readers’ country. When someone from Japan reads me, I become a Japanese writer.” I am a Japanese Writer, a devilishly intelligent, sensual and hilarious tale of a blocked Montreal writer who learns one day that he is famous in Japan for a novel he never wrote