SOURCE: "Last Story-Teller," in Waves, Vol. 14, No. 4, Spring, 1986, pp. 93-95.

[In the following interview conducted on November 3, 1985, on the occassion of the Canada-in-Commonwealth conference held at Acadia University, Jacquot talks with Maillet about her background and motivation for writing.]

Looking at the Grand-Pré dikes, Antonine Maillet says: "I was here when the Acadians were deported, I was in the blood of my ancestors." And she has decided to write their story because they had no way to do so.

Antonine Maillet is the last of a generation of story-tellers and the first one of a generation of writers. It is because of that deeply rooted need to tell that her books are stories. She has published 20 books including novels, plays and stories for children. She has received 13 honorary doctorates and many literary awards, namely the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1979 with Pélagie la Charette. I interviewed her a few miles from Grand-Pré, on her land, as she put it, on the occasion of the Canada-in-Commonwealth conference held at Acadia University on November 3, 1985, to which she had been invited to read from her works.

[Jacquot:] Is it because you consider yourself as the last story-teller that you are so much attracted to the past?

[Maillet:] I am not that much attracted to the past. I mean, the past becomes important to me when I can find something in it which inspires me and reflects my present, something which stimulates me. In all my stories set in the past, there is a small cell in each of my characters which developed into the person I am. So the past is part of me, but I don't consider that I look back.

So when you write, you develop a slice of your personality?

Yes, my characters are all my different possibilities. When I write, I multiply myself, I live one million lives, which I could not do otherwise because life is too short and the world is too small.

The main characters of your books are generally women. Is it a deliberate choice?

No, it is an unconscious and necessary one. A writer does not really choose: the choices are ready-made, somehow. When I was born, I had not decided to be born that year, in that village, and so on. Those choices had been made for me. Automatically, I gathered in my surrounding a series of characters which were going to be developed in my books. The fact that my characters are women does not even come from the fact that I am one, but because I lived that life, in an Acadian environment, during the war and depression years in which feminine values were predominant. So it is because of my story, my biography, as well as my personality that my characters are women.

You are an artist, a woman, an Acadian and you are French-speaking. You seem to represent most of the minorities …

Yes, but I'd like to give to the word minority a positive connotation, because minorities should be valorized as being more precious and fragile because unique. The artist is, in a way, the small voice. Women, even though superior in number, are just starting to speak up. L'Acadie is small and its survival is still insecure. So the position of all these minorities and the urgency for them to be protected gives me the strength to write. I am a multi-minority, but my basic elements are rare pearls.

Would it be difficult to write if you came back to New Brunswick? People say that you are turning into a Montrealer …

No, I did not leave l'Acadie. It is not a place, it is a culture. I can live in Montreal and stay Acadian. If I were living in Acadie, I would fundamentally be the same. The milieu would just be smaller. I live in Montreal because it is the cultural capital city for me.

Have you ever thought of publishing a book in Acadie?

Yes, and long before all the other Acadian writers. But when I wrote my first book in 1958, there were no publishing houses there. I had already published at least 8 books when les Editions d'Acadie were founded. Then, I had a kind of moral contract with my publisher. Moreover, I live off my craft, and books are better distributed in Montreal. So historical reasons prevented me from getting published in Acadie. In a way, it is because people like me looked for a publisher elsewhere that les Editions d'Acadie were born.

The world that you create in your books can be defined as South-East Acadian as far as themes, language and settings are concerned. Is not there a danger to limit yourself to one genre?

There are always dangers, but I try to prevent to get stuck in a ditch. It is the danger of repeating one's first book, especially if it has been a success. I refuse to be dominated by that kind of danger and I know I can avoid it. I think that there has been a constant evolution in my works with each new book. When I wrote Les Crasseux I stepped away from On a mangé la dune. The same happened with La Sagouine, which became a kind of wave with Gapi and Les Crasseux. I opened a new phase with Les Cordes de Bois. It was a new way of looking at things, a new technique of writing. Then there was a new stage which could probably look like the previous one, but to me it consists in a continuity. Now I am building a bridge to leave the period of Pélagie, Cent Ans dans les Bois and Crache à Pic. It is going to be a continuity of the same world, because I cannot escape from my own world, but I will reveal new facets of it.

You won the Prix Goncourt in 1979 thanks to Pélagie la Charette. Is it your favorite book?

I always have a favorite book, but it changes every day! Pélagie was important in my life, not only because of the Goncourt which was the outside significance. But it meant something special for me because I realized I was writing a kind of epic poem in the Acadian fashion. Pélagie is a reverse epic poem, and I love to do things upside down. The epic poem is the story of a people in the minute which precedes its birth. The return of Pélagie represents the 10 years during which it was going to be decided whether l'Acadie was going to go on existing or not. The cart would decide. As opposed to the classical epic poem in which the hero rides a horse, here the heroine is walking. As opposed to the official language, here the characters speak the everyday language of the people. Those who speak the official language are making history: the States are receiving a constitution, becoming independent. Meanwhile, Pélagie goes back home through the back yard of America, unaware that she is making history. So Pélagie, in spite of me, became an epic in the sense that it tells of the story of the boat-people of that time, but it is a reverse one because it tells of their return.

You write a lot for the theater. Do you get a chance to work with actors?

It is true, I have always been very fond of theater and whenever one of my plays is being acted, I participate back stage. I attend the rehearsals, I help as much as I can, I give advice for the costumes, the stage setting, I see the play evolve. Yes, I feel I am part of the company.

Have you ever worked with Viola Léger?

Many times: Whenever Viola acts in one of my plays, which has happened more than once. I am always there.

How did you meet?

We were teaching in the same school a long time ago. At that time, we used to stage plays with our students: I was writing them, and she was staging them. I realized at once she was very gifted for the theater. When I wrote La Sagouine she was in Paris studying drama. I sent her my manuscript to know what she thought of it. She answered that she was coming back right away to perform it. It was the beginning of her fame.

One of your major themes is genealogy. It is important for you in your life, too.

Yes, I already knew that my Maillet ancestor, Jacques, came from Paris, and not from the east of France like all the other Acadians. But I recently discovered that the name Mailiet was given in 1163 to three brothers who were building cathedrals, namely Notre-Dame-de-Paris. One of them was my ancestor.