Мари Клер Бле: Жизнь и творчество канадской писательницы

Canadian writer (1939–2021)

Marie Claire Blais (5 October 1939 – 30 November 2021) was a Canadian writer, novelist, poet, and playwright from the province of Québec. In a career spanning seventy years, she wrote novels, plays, collections of poetry and fiction, newspaper articles, radio dramas, and scripts for television. She was a four time recipient of the Governor General’s literary prize for French Canadian literature, and was also a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for creative arts. Some of her works included La Belle Bête (1959), The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange (1968), Deaf to the City (1979), and a ten volume series Soifs written between 1995 and 2018.

Blais was born on 5 October 1939 into a blue collar family in Québec, the daughter of Fernando and Véronique (Nolin) Blais. She studied at a convent school, but had to interrupt her education at the age of 15 to seek employment as a clerk and later as a typist. She received a grant from the Canada Council of Arts which allowed her to begin writing full time. In 1972, she became a Companion of the Order of Canada. Many of her works have been adapted for other formats: La belle bête was made into a ballet by the National Ballet of Canada in 1977. The same book was made into a movie by Karim Hussain in 1976. She sponsored the Prix littéraire Québec France Marie Claire Blais [fr] starting in 2005; awarded annually to a French author for their debut novel. In addition to her novels, Blais has written several plays, collections of poetry and fiction, newspaper articles, radio dramas, and scripts for television. Her works had characters that included delinquent children, wayward nuns and abusive priests and included issues like white supremacy, nuclear holocaust, and the AIDS epidemic.

Blais was a longtime partner of American writer and painter Mary Meigs. Meigs predeceased her in 2002.