Article

Jacques Brault

Published Online February 7, 2008

Last Edited December 15, 2013

Jacques Brault, writer (b at Montréal, Qué 29 Mar 1933). Brault is a major poet of contemporary Québec. He studied at the Collège Sainte-Marie (Montréal), Université de Montréal and the Sorbonne (Paris), before becoming a professor at Université de Montréal in 1960.

Brault, Jacques

Jacques Brault, writer (b at Montréal, Qué 29 Mar 1933). Brault is a major poet of contemporary Québec. He studied at the Collège Sainte-Marie (Montréal), Université de Montréal and the Sorbonne (Paris), before becoming a professor at Université de Montréal in 1960. He has written for various magazines, notably Liberté, and is a literary critic and producer of literary radio programming for Radio-Canada.

Born to a poor family, Brault in all his work has expressed his attachment to the humble realities of life and his search for a simple and basic wisdom. His collection, Mémoire (1965 and 1968, Prix de poésie du Québec, 1965, and Prix France-Canada, 1968), containing "Suite fraternelle," made him famous as a poet of contemporary urban life and of a country as yet unbuilt.

His poetic works continued in a more philosophical vein with La Poésie ce matin (1971), Poèmes des quatre côtés (1975), L'en dessous l'admirable (1975), Trois fois passera (1981) and Moments fragiles (1984). Playwright (Trois partitions, 1972, including Quand nous serons heureux, Governor General's Award, 1970), essayist ("Alain Grandbois", 1968; "Chemin faisant", 1975) and novelist (Agonie, 1984, Governor General's Award; tr 1987 as Deathwatch), he has received the Prix Duvernay (1978) and the Prix Athanase-David (1986) for his work as a whole. In 1997, Brault received the coveted Prix Gilles-Corbeil.