Lorena Gale Je Me Souviens

Lorena Gale Je Me Souviens Go on a journey of discovery this week on Sunday Showcase. Lorena Gale's powerful dramatic monologue "Je Me Souviens" reconstructs her childhood and coming of age as an African-Canadian in Montreal. It's a sobering trip through identity, belonging and emotional geography. That's "Je Me Souviens" on Sunday Showcase starting at 10 p.m. (11 AT, 11:30 NT) on CBC Radio One. February 2004. In this powerful dramatic monologue, Lorena Gale remembers, by reconstructing for the audience, her childhood and coming of age as an African Canadian in Montréal. Her autobiographical protagonist is unabashedly one of those spoil-sport “ethniques” who, for political factions led by the likes of Parizeau, undermined and destroyed the separatist “pur-laine” vision of a new Quebec nation, sparkling and clean in its coat of only three colours—the seamless snow-white of the landscape, the royal blue of the sky, and the golden yellow of the sun (king), all allusions to the symbology of the imperialists who founded this “new nation,” this “new France.” In a dream-sequence / folksong which is played in ironic fragments between the voices adopted by the actress, Gale lyricizes the long, parallel process of rediscovering her self, first as a dark speck on the horizon where pure white meets pure blue, then finally as a full-grown adult, whose race, gender and class are far more definitive of her person than the vapid dreams of the neo-nationalists of the late 20th century.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.