Maya Jaggi

Au Revoir, Franglais

On my way to Montreal last November, I chanced on a short film in which a father grows distraught when his baby son’s first utterance is not ‘papa’ but ‘daddy’. In First Words (2011), the competition between a bilingual couple – one francophone, one Anglo – to give pride of place in the nursery to their own mother tongue mirrors Quebec’s perennial tussle over language. The husband’s predicament – at one point he itches to set fire to his child’s English picture books – was blurbed as a ‘French Canadian father’s worst nightmare’. Fabien Melanson’s eight-minute short, showcased on an Air Canada flight, gave a mischievous insight into francophone Quebecers’ deep-seated fear that their language and identity are under siege.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'One of the reasons for its longevity is that it has virtually nothing to say about science and technology at all,… ,
    • 'The characters in many of these stories are trapped in the obsessive present tense of their own thoughts; in the m… ,
    • 'Libraries, for much of their existence, have embodied in microcosm many of the characteristics of the totalitarian… ,
    • 'Moss and Cynthia buy several properties through which to launder their ill-gotten gains, take lots of drugs, have… ,
    • 'Never mind the imperial cult. This is the cult of Boris. What happened to Rome?' From the LR archive:… ,
    • Thirty-two years ago this month, we published Muriel Spark's short story, 'A Playhouse Called Remarkable' Read it… ,
    • Time travel, bicycles and white horses populate @WomackPhilip's roundup of children's books by @marcussedgwick,… ,
    Follow Us