Marie-Claire Blais
Marie-Claire Blais | |
|---|---|
 Marie-Claire Blais at the 2010 Montréal Book Fair | |
| Born | 5 October 1939 Quebec City |
| Occupation | Author, playwright |
| Nationality | Canadian |
Marie-Claire Blais, CC OQ MSRC (born 5 October 1939 in Quebec City) is a French Canadian writer, novelist, poet, and playwright from the province of Quebec.
Life
Born in Quebec City, she was educated at a convent school, and at Université Laval, where she met Jeanne Lapointe and Father Georges Lévesque, who encouraged her to write, causing her to publish her first novel La Belle Bête (trans. Mad Shadows) in 1959 when she turned 20. She has since written over 20 novels, several plays, collections of poetry and fiction, as well newspaper articles. Her works have been translated into numerous languages, including English and Chinese. With the support of the eminent American critic Edmund Wilson, Blais won two Guggenheim Fellowships.
In 1963, Blais moved to the United States, initially living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There she met her partner, American artist Mary Meigs, and she later relocated to Wellfleet on Cape Cod. In 1975, after two years living in Brittany, she moved back to Quebec with her partner. For about twenty years she divided her time between Montreal, the Eastern Townships of Quebec and Key West, Florida.
Writings
Much of Blais' writing has been in the form of social commentary, with intermixed elements of good and evil in settings part real, and part fantasy. Her works lean toward the tragic, within a hostile society of vice and violence. The strength of Blais' writing ability is rewarding to the reader in spite of the darker aspects of her themes.
Impact
In 1972 she became a Companion of the Order of Canada.
Her works La Belle Bête (1959), Une Saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel (1965) and Le Sourd dans la ville (1979), have been adapted for the cinema.
Canadian film director Karim Hussain adapted La Belle Bête in 2006. He won the Director's Award at the Boston Underground Film Festival's for the film.[1]
Works
- La Belle Bête (Mad Shadows) - 1959
- Tête Blanche (Tête Blanche) - 1960
- Le Jour est noir - ("The Day is Dark" in The Day is Dark and Three Travellers) 1962
- Pays voilés ("Veiled Countries" in Veiled Countries/Lives) - 1963
- Une Saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel (A Season in the Life of Emmanuel) - 1965
- L'insoumise (The Fugitive) - 1966
- Existences ("Lives" in Veiled Countries/Lives) - 1967
- Les Manuscrits de Pauline Archange (The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange) - 1968
- L'exécution (The Execution) - 1968
- Les Voyageurs sacrés ("Three Travellers" in The Day is Dark and Three Travellers) - 1969
- Vivre! Vivre! (The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange) - 1969
- Le Loup (The Wolf) - 1970
- Un Joualonais, sa Joualonie (St. Lawrence Blues) - 1973
- Fièvre et autres textes dramatiques - 1974
- Une Liaison parisienne (A Literary Affair) - 1975
- Les Apparences (Dürer's Angel) - 1976
- Océan suivi de murmures - 1977
- Les Nuits de l'underground (Nights in the Underground) - 1978
- Le Sourd dans la ville (Deaf to the City) - 1979
- Visions d'Anna ou Le vertige (Anna's World) - 1982
- Sommeil d'hiver (Wintersleep) - 1984
- Pierre, la guerre du printemps (Pierre) - 1984
- L'Île (The Island) - 1989]
- L'Ange de la solitude (The Angel of Solitude) - 1989
- Parcours d'un écrivain: Notes américaines (American Notebooks: A Writer's Journey) - 1993
- Soifs (These Festive Nights) - 1995
- (The Exile and the Sacred Travellers) - 2000
- Dans la foudre et la lumière (Thunder and Light) - 2001
- Augustino et le chœur de la déstruction (Augustino and the Choir of Destruction) - 2005
- The Collected Radio Drama of Marie-Claire Blais - 2007
- Mai au bal des prédateurs - 2010
Awards
- Prix France-Canada - 1965
- Prix Médicis - 1966
- Prix Athanase-David - 1982
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada - 1986
- Prix Ludger-Duvernay - 1988
- Governor General's Literary Award - 1996
- Prix d'Italie - 1999
- W. O. Mitchell Literary Prize - 2000
- Prix Prince Pierre de Monaco - 2002
- Matt Cohen Prize - 2006
References
- ^ "Karim Hussain (i) - awards". Imdb.com. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
- "Marie-Claire Blais" in Canadian Writers, an examination of archival manuscripts, typescripts, correspondence, journals and notebooks at Library and Archives Canada
- Office of the Governor General of Canada. Order of Canada citation. Queen's Printer for Canada. Retrieved 24 May 2010
External links
- Use dmy dates from July 2013
- 1939 births
- Living people
- 20th-century Canadian novelists
- 21st-century Canadian novelists
- Companions of the Order of Canada
- Officers of the National Order of Quebec
- Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
- French Quebecers
- Lesbian writers
- LGBT writers from Canada
- Writers from Quebec
- Canadian women novelists
- Governor General's Award-winning fiction writers
- Prix Médicis winners
- Prix Athanase-David winners
- LGBT dramatists and playwrights
- LGBT novelists
- 20th-century women writers
- 21st-century women writers
- Canadian novelists in French
- French-language LGBT writers