American born author, Jack Kerouac was born to French-Canadian parents. His known baptism name was Jean Louis Kirouac but referred to as Ti Jean or little John. Kerouac spoke the French-Canadian dialect called Joual until he learned English at age six, not speaking it confidently until his late teens.
In an article in Le Devoir by Gabriel Ancil, Kerouac’s articles in the Montreal newspaper revealed the existence of two unpublished novellas Kerouac wrote in French in the early 1950s. One of them, Sur le chemin, was composed at high speed in William Burroughs’ apartment in Mexico City. In the other, La nuit est ma femme, Kerouac identified French as the language in which he often swears, often dreams, and always cries.
In the same article it was also revealed on the 50th anniversary of his novel masterpiece On The Road that Kerouac’s first version was in French. The first ten pages were laid down on January 19, 1951, several months before writing the first version of the English novel.