In this paper, I will analyze the way in which a narrative figure as metalepsis is used in three Francophone works of fiction dealing with the past. Indeed, it could seem inappropriate  to use a device classified under the label of "paradoxical narration" by some theorists (K. Meyer-Minnemann, S. Lang, N. Grabe) when dealing with history. However, the frame-breaking nature of metalepsis (cf. Debra Malina) allows for the possibility of bringing together two different worlds, something that can be highly relevant when representing the past.

In the three works chosen, written by C. F. Ramuz, Patrick Chamoiseau and Marie Ndiaye, narrative metalepsis is used in complex ways in order to enact the fusion of different consciences and thereby of different time periods. The metalepses in the three works are interesting to study also when it comes to the narrative boundaries which are crossed and the direction of the crossing (ascendant, descendant or horizontal, cf. G. Prince, S. Klimek, S. Rabau), since these are aspects that can have important impact on the representation (or sometimes non-representation) of the past. Moreover, the three works constitute examples of both different genres and different attitudes towards the past, only one of them (Chamoiseau) aiming at historiography.