Kerouac refers to this short novel in a letter addressed to Neal Cassady (who is commonly known as the inspiration for the character Dean Moriarty) dated January 10, 1953. The published novel runs over 110 pages, having been reconstituted from six distinct files in the Kerouac archive by Professor Cloutier. Set in 1935, mostly on the East Coast, it explores some of the recurring themes of Kerouac's literature by way of a spoken word narrative. Here, as with most of his French writings, Kerouac writes with little regard for grammar or spelling, often relying on phonetics in order to render an authentic reproduction of the French-Canadian vernacular. Even though this work has the same title as one of his best known English novels, it is the original French version of an incomplete translation that later became Old Bull in the Bowery (now published in The Unknown Kerouac from the Library of America). The Unknown Kerouac, edited by Todd Tietchen, includes Cloutier's translation of La nuit est ma femme and the completed translation of Sur le Chemin under the title Old Bull in the Bowery. La nuit est ma femme was written in early 1951 and completed a few days or weeks before he began the original English version of On the Road, as many scholars, such as Paul Maher Jr., Joyce Johnson, Hassan Melehy, and Gabriel Anctil have pointed out.
Kerouac refers to this short novel in a letter addressed to Neal Cassady (who is commonly known as the inspiration for the character Dean Moriarty) dated January 10, 1953. The published novel runs over 110 pages, having been reconstituted from six distinct files in the Kerouac archive by Professor Cloutier. Set in 1935, mostly on the East Coast, it explores some of, the recurring themes of Kerouac's literature by way of a spoken word narrative. Here, as with most of his French writings, Kerouac writes with little regard for grammar or spelling, often relying on phonetics in order to render an authentic reproduction of the French-Canadian vernacular. Even though this work has the same title as one of his best known English novels, it is the original French version of an incomplete translation that later became Old Bull in the Bowery (now published in The Unknown Kerouac from the Library of America). The Unknown Kerouac, edited by Todd Tietchen, includes Cloutier's translation of La nuit est ma femme and the completed translation of Sur le Chemin under the title Old Bull in the Bowery. La nuit est ma femme was written in early 1951 and completed a few days or weeks before he began the original English version of On the Road, as many scholars, such as Paul Maher Jr., Joyce Johnson, Hassan Melehy, and Gabriel Anctil have pointed out.