This study aims at analysing the writing of history through a corpus of eight novels, published in Quebec between 1980 and 1990. The corpus is comprised of La Tribu and Les Plaines à l’envers by F. Barcelo, of Louis Caron’s trilogy Fils de la liberté, of Premier jardin by Anne Hébert, of La Maison Trestler ou le 8ème jour d’Amérique by Madeleine Ouellette-Michalska’s and of Un dernier blues pour Octobre by Pierre Turgeon. While English distinguishes « history » from « story », French uses the single term « histoire ». If that polysemy may cause confusion, it may also generate a reflection, just as the one underlying this analysis: How does a story tell history? How have stories contributed to the rewriting of Quebec’s plural history in the 1980s? Answering these questions will require three main developments. The first part will be an attempt to explain and understand the fraternal yet fratricidal relationship between literature and history, two disciplines which became distinct in the 19th century. Moreover, it proposes a reflection on the historical novel and historical fiction. The second part will be devoted to the comparative study of the historical and narrative discourses within the constituent novels of the corpus. And finally, in a third part, our reflection will lead us to consider Quebec’s poetics, in order to show how –by rewriting memory– those texts have participated in creating Quebec’s collective identity at the very end of the 20th century.
