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Marie-Claire Blais, author (b at Québec City 5 Oct 1939). One of Québec's finest contemporary writers, Marie-Claire Blais grew up in the QUÉBEC CITY working-class district of Limoilou. Educated by Roman Catholic nuns, she became increasingly disillusioned with school as she became absorbed in her early literary endeavours. She decided to quit her academic program and take a year's commercial training. She then worked at a variety of jobs for three years before moving in 1958 to the Quartier Latin near Université Laval, where she attended lectures on French literature and was befriended by professors Jeanne Lapointe and Father Georges-Henri LÉVESQUE. In her novels, plays and poetry, Blais writes about humanity's successful efforts or failure, real or imagined, to redeem human suffering in a material, moral or spiritual way.
Her first novel, La Belle Bête, published in 1959, was highly acclaimed as well as criticized for its lack of conventional morality. It was published in France in 1960 and was translated into English (Mad Shadows), Spanish and Italian. A second novel, Tête blanche (1960), soon followed (English tr 1961). The young novelist then spent a few moody months in Paris and wrote a poetical novel, The Day Is Dark. Back in Montréal Blais met American critic Edmund Wilson and was awarded two Guggenheim fellowships that enabled her to live in New England with friends, painter Mary Meigs and journalist Barbara Deming. Perhaps her best novel, UNE SAISON DANS LA VIE D'EMMANUEL (1965) was awarded the Prix France-Canada and the prestigious Prix Médicis, and brought her a much wider international audience with translations into multiple languages (published in English as A Season in the Life of Emmanuel). Over 2000 books, theses, articles, reviews and interviews have been written about it, and the critical contradictions they express are a tribute to the novel's rich intricacy. Blais moved to Brittany with Meigs in 1972 and, after some years in Europe, settled in Montréal, where she continues to write at a steady pace. She has published some 30 books, critical editions, translations, plays, and radio and TV scripts. Her memoir American Notebooks : A Writer's Journey was published in translation in 1996. Blais's work has won many international awards, including GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARDS for Les Manuscrits de Pauline Archange (1968), Le Sourd dans la ville (1979), and Soif (1995). Soif was published in English translation, titled These Festive Nights, in 2004. Blais was named the 1995-96 International Woman of the Year by the International Biographical Centre in Cambridge, England. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and the Ordre National du Québec, and a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Lettres. Blais was also the first North American writer invited to join Belgium's prestigious Academy of French Language and Literature.
Author
VINCENT NADEAU Rev: KAREN GRANDY
Links to Other Sites
Marie-Claire Blais
Marie-Claire Blais, 1996 Governor General's Literary Award Winner, is the subject of this Library and Archives Canada website. Features an audio excerpt of her prize winning book.
Marie-Claire Blais
A profile of author Marie-Claire Blais.
Canadian Writers
An online exhibition of documents about some of Canada's most celebrated writers. From the Literary Manuscripts Collection of Library and Archives Canada.
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