Literary Heterolinguism in French-speaking Authors of Spanish Origin: Literary Bilingualism and Diglossia in Semprun, Blasquez, Del Castillo and Salvayre

Abstract

In this article we examine the contact between French and Spanish languages in the narrative work of bilingual authors of Hispanic origin within the framework of “literary heterolinguism” (Grutman 1997). Firstly, we focus on the work of authors who accompanied their families into exile as children or adolescents and adopted French as the language of writing: Michel del Castillo, Adélaïde Blasquez and Jorge Semprun. Secondly, we explore the novel Pas pleurer by Lydie Salvayre, a bilingual author of Spanish origin born in France. The comparative analysis deals with the forms of narrative vehicle of the double linguistic and cultural belonging of these authors; the first aligned to individual forms of management of bilingualism through the thematization of language —“literary bilingualism”—, and the second through the vindication of historical memory and the manifestation of the tensions of the context in which the two languages coexist —“literary diglossia”— (Grutman 2003).