Marie-Claire Blais

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Biography

Marie-Claire Blais was born in Quebec City in 1939. She left school at the age of fifteen to work in a shoe factory. She studied French literature at the Université Laval. She published her first novel when she was only twenty. After publication of her second novel she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, sponsored by Edmund Wilson. Her work has remained highly experimental, ranging from the use of crude street talk to surrealism, from stream-of-consciousness to language games. Her books paint a bleak picture of the world in which we live – evil is rampant, relationships are doomed and people, particularly parents, are vicious and cruel. She died in 2021.

Books about Marie-Claire Blais

Mary Jean Matthews Green: Marie-Claire Blais
Irène Oore and Oriel MacLennan: Marie-Claire Blais: An Annotated Bibliography

Bibliography

1959 La belle bête (Mad Shadows) (novel)
1960 Tête blanche (Tête Blanche) (novel)
1962 Le Jour est noir (The Day is Dark) (novel)
1963 Pays Voilés (Veiled Countries) (poetry)
1964 Existences (Lives) (poetry)
1965 Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel (A Season in the Life of Emmanuel) (novel)
1966 L’Insoumise (The Fugitive) (novel)
1967 David Sterne (David Sterne) (novel)
1968 Manuscrits de Pauline Archange (The Manuscripts of Pauline Archange) (novel)
1969 Les voyageurs sacrés (Three Travellers; later: Sacred Travellers) (stories)
1969 Vivre! Vivre! (novel)
1970 L’Exécution (The Execution) (drama)
1970 Les apparences (Dürer’s Angel) (novel)
1972 Le loup (The Wolf) (novel)
1973 Un joualonais sa joualonie (St. Lawrence Blues) (novel)
1974 A cour joual (novel)
1974 Fièvre et autres textes dramatiques (drama)
1975 Une liaison parisienne (A Literary Affair) (novel)
1976 La Nef des Sorcières (A Clash of Symbols) (drama)
1977 L’Océan (The Ocean) (drama)
1978 Les Nuits de l’underground (Nights in the Underground) (novel)
1979 Sourd dans la ville (Deaf to the City)
1982 Visions d’Anna (Anna’s World) (novel)
1984 Sommeil d’hiver (drama)
1984 Pierre la guerre du printemps 81 (later: Pierre) (Pierre) (novel)
1988 L’Île (The Island) (drama)
1989 L’Ange de la solitude (The Angel of Solitude) (novel)
1990 Un jardin dans la tempête (radio play)
1991 Une liaison parisienne (A Literary Affair) (novel)
1992 L’exilé: nouvelles suivi de Les voyageurs sacrés (The Exile and the Sacred Travellers) (stories)
1993 Parcours d’un écrivain: notes américaines (American notebooks: a Writer’s Journey)
1995 Soifs (These Festive Nights) (novel)
1995 L’Instant fragile (poetry)
1997 Oeuvre poétique, 1957-1996 (poetry)
1998 Sommeil d’hiver (Wintersleep) (drama)
1998 Théâtre (drama)
1998 Envol imaginaire (text to paintings of Annouchka Gravel Galouchko)
1999 Textes radiophoniques (The Collected Radio Drama of Marie-Claire Blais)
2001 Dans la foudre et la lumière (Thunder and Light) (novel)
2002 Des rencontres humaines (autobiography)
2005 Augustino ou Le chœur de la destruction (novel)
2007 Noces à midi au-dessus de l’abîme – et autres textes dramatiques (drama)
2008 Naissance de Rebecca à l’ère des tourments (Rebecca, Born in the Maelstrom) (novel)
2010 Mai au bal des prédateurs (Mai at the Predators’ Ball) (novel)
2012 Le jeune homme sans avenir (Nothing For You Here, Young Man) (novel)
2012 Passages américains (essay)
2014 Aux jardins des acacias (The Acacia Gardens) (novel)
2015 Le festin au crépuscule (novel)
2017 Des chants pour Angel (novel)
2018 Une réunion près de la mer (novel)
2019 À l’intérieur de la menace (politics)
2020 Petites Cendres ou la capture (novel)
2021 Un cœur habité de mille voix (Nights Too Short to Dance) (novel)
2022 Augustino ou l’illumination (novel)

The Modern Novel

The world-wide literary novel from early 20th Century onwards