Le 'vrai' moi: Nancy Huston's Concern for Authenticity

Nancy Huston, voluntarily exiled in France from her native Anglophone Canada, is constantly troubled by others’ perception of her displaced identity and her own presentation of her “real” identity. This article examines the way in which Huston situates herself within French culture and the French literary canon through the analysis of two of her nonfiction works, Lettres parisiennes: autopsie de l’exil (1986, in collaboration with Leïla Sebbar) and Nord perdu (1999). The analysis of the importance of childhood as key to Huston’s adult identity and the significance of the French language to her writing project and identity as a writer, is followed by the discussion of her right to claim belonging within the different aspects of her identity as French, Canadian, writer, and exile. The article concludes with a discussion of Huston’s notion of identity as constructed rather than inherent, the notion which lies at the root of her anxiety over the tension between imitation, and the authentic performance of identity