The aim of this study is to challenge the view that narrative metalepsis is incompatible with the writing about the past and history. I study three works by francophone writers in which metalepsis and another similar narrative device, syllepsis, are used in interesting ways in stories dealing in different ways with the past. In C F Ramuz’s short story Scène dans la forêt, both devices are used in order to give the reader the impression of being in physical contact with past events and with the fictional events represented in the story. The past here is of an individual type. In Marie NDiaye’s first story of her novel Three Strong Women, the individual past can be read as an allegory of France’s postcolonial relation to the former African colonies. Metalepsis is used in order to suggest that the character accepts her past. In Patrick Chamoiseau’s novel Biblique des derniers gestes, metalepses are used in order to suggest a physical contact with the forgotten history of slavery.