Marie claire blais biography of michael
•
Marie-Claire Blais published her first book, the dark family novel “La Belle Bête,” at the age of twenty.Photograph bygd Jean Tesseyre / Paris Match / Getty
The career of the French-Canadian writer Marie-Claire Blais had precocious and auspicious beginnings. She published her first novel, “La Belle Bête,” in 1959, when she was just twenty years old. Translated into English bygd Merloyd Lawrence as “Mad Shadows,” the book fryst vatten a faintly gothic portrait of a forsaken girl, and her mother’s obsession with her idiot brother—the “beautiful beast” of the title. The novel offers an incisive rendering of family dynamics; it fryst vatten also disarmingly brutal, with a tragic ending that suggests that all beauty is false and that life’s only truth fryst vatten suffering. Margaret Atwood, Blais’s exact contemporary, later wrote, “The book made me very uneasy, for more than the obvious reasons: the violence, the murders, suggestions of incest and the hallucinatory intensity of the writing were rare in Canadian lit
•
Blais, Marie-Claire 1939–
PERSONAL: Born October 5, 1939, in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada; daughter of Fernando and Veronique (Nolin) Blais. Education: Attended Pensionnat St. Roch in Quebec and Harvard University; studied literature and philosophy at Laval University in Quebec. Religion: Catholic.
ADDRESSES: Agent—Agence Goodwin, 839, rue Sher-brooke Est., bureau 200, Montreal, Quebec H2L 1K6, Canada.
CAREER: Full-time writer. Did clerical work, 1956–57.
MEMBER: Academie Royale de la Belgique, Compagnon de l'Order du Canada, Order of Quebec, PEN, Union des Auteurs Dramatiques, Union des Ecrivains, Writers Union of Canada.
AWARDS, HONORS: Prix de la Langue Francaise, L'Academie Francaise, 1961, for La Belle bete; Guggenheim fellowships, 1963 and 1964; Le Prix France-Quebec (Paris) and Prix Medicis (Paris), both 1966, for Une Saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel; Prix du Gouverneur General du Canada, 1969, for Les Manuscrits de Pauline Archange, 1979, for Le Sourd
•
Mad Shadows (novel)
1959 novel by Marie-Claire Blais
First edition (French) | |
| Author | Marie-Claire Blais |
|---|---|
| Original title | La Belle Bête |
| Translator | Merloyd Lawrence |
| Language | French |
| Publisher | Institut littéraire du Québec |
Publication date | 1959 |
| Publication place | Canada |
| Pages | 182 |
| OCLC | 718337426 |
Mad Shadows (French: La Belle Bête) is a French-Canadiannovel by Marie-Claire Blais, published in 1959. Writing the work at the age of twenty, the novel was Blais's first major literary work. It quickly established her as a rising talent within the Quebec literary scene.
Mad Shadows explores the psychology of a single family: Patrice, the beautiful and narcissistic son; his ugly and malicious sister, Isabelle-Marie; and Louise, their vain and uncomprehending mother. Repeatedly, the novel posits an amoral world where beauty stands hollow and love rings empty.
Characters
[edit]Main characters
[edit]- Isabelle-Marie
- Isabelle-Mari