'Le récit de vie(s)': immobility and fluidity in Ying Chen's works

The article explores the themes of fluidity and immobility in the works of Ying Chen, a francophone Chinese writer whose early texts are associated with 'les écritures migrantes' of Quebec. From her third book, the narratives take on a post-death perspective and the narrator moves between her present existence and past lives.

Ying Chen and the ‘‘Non-Lieu’’

The French-language prose works of Ying Chen re-examine the idea of absolute cultural cores of being and belonging which has traditionally been associated with Chinese overseas literature. Her concept of identity, constantly in the process of becoming, can be understood through the various ways in which her own, and her characters', ‘between-world’ consciousness is expressed, namely through the portrayal of migration, the metaphors of shores and bridges, the themes of attachment and detachment, and the discussion of physical displacement and inner exile. The author's theories on literary language, too, focus on in-between spaces, such as that between the real and the probable.