SOURCE: Brossard, Nicole, and Janice Williamson. “Nicole Brossard: ‘Before I became a feminist, I suppose I was an angel, a poet, a revolutionary. …’” In Sounding Differences: Conversations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers, by Janice Williamson, pp. 59-72. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.

In the following interview, Brossard discusses her feminism and political motivation in relation to her literary works.

[Williamson]: Would you reflect on a comment you made during a 1975 Quebec conference on women and writing? You said, ‘For that which speaks wants at the same time to condemn the law that calls for its repression, that which is forbidden desires and that which desires writes propelled by the very law it transgresses.’ What do you mean by transgression and desire?

[Brossard]: The notion of transgression has always been important in my writing. In books, mainly those published in the seventies, transgressing meant taking risks, making trouble in...