Damase Potvin

Potvin, Damase

Damase Potvin, journalist, writer (b at Bagotville, Qué 16 Oct 1879; d at Québec C 9 June 1964). After studies at the Petit Séminaire de Chicoutimi in 1903, Potvin entered the novitiate of the White Fathers of Africa in Algiers. He returned to Chicoutimi in 1905 and began his long career in journalism as founder and editor of Le Travailleur. Over the next few years he worked for several newspapers as well as publishing an agricultural novel, Restons chez nous! (1908). In 1910 he became parliamentary correspondent for L'Événement, was made head of Associated Press in Québec in 1912 and head of the Québec Press Gallery in 1915, as well as publishing a political novel, Le "Membre" (1916).

He founded the Société des arts, sciences et lettres de Québec with some friends, among them Alonzo Cinq-Mars, and in 1918 helped found Le Terroir, the society's journal, in which he published some 500 articles and reviews. A second rural novel, L'Appel de la terre appeared in 1919. Moving from L'Événement to Le Soleil in 1920, he left the latter in 1925 for La Presse, and continued to write for it into the 1960s. During his long career he appeared in more than 150 national and foreign periodicals and published 36 books. In 1945 he joined the Québec Department of Public Instruction. His many honours and distinctions included the Prix David in 1938. He perfected the format of the agricultural novel and deeply influenced authors of this kind of book.