Writing First Nations Narratives for a French Audience: a Literary Analysis of Two French Young Adult Novels

This article examines two recent French novels (Stolen by Pascale Perrier (2018) and Red Man by Jean-François Chabas (2021)) intended for Young Adults (romans-jeunesse) and featuring First Nations Australian characters. Within a context of current cultural debates about the danger of cultural appropriation and the use of ‘sensitivity readers’ and taking into account the different perspectives in France and in Australia, it discusses the auctorial paratext (title, cover, foreword), the young characters’ point of view and the interpretation of Aboriginal themes. What perspectives and strategies do these authors try to adopt in order to convey a more respectful and political representation of Australian Indigenous characters? This article will also discuss the negotiations between diverse and sometimes divergent cultural injunctions.