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Interview

Volume 19, Number 1 (1994)

Carole Corbeil: A Voice of Her Own

  • Christine Hamelin
Submitted
May 22, 2008
Published
1994-01-01

Abstract

In Voice-Over, a semi-autobiographical novel, Carole Corbeil addresses the guilt and loss she feels for having partly lost her Québécois heritage. Voice-Over uses both languages to give voice to Canada's bicultural reality. Corbeil speaks about recapturing her childhood memories through the process of writing in French, about the importance of past and memory to healing and creation, and about the struggle of the characters in the novel to find their voices. She says that "once you become fully conscious you find your voice." Women are "bilingual and bicultural" because of the "patriarchal overlay" in the world; the oppression of women and the oppression of culture and language are linked to issues of power.