Jacques Folch-Ribas

Jacques Folch-Ribas

Jacques Folch-Ribas, novelist and art critic (b at Barcelona 4 Nov 1928). His family left Spain to flee the Franco regime, and settled in France in 1939. There, he earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and philosophy and a diploma in urban planning from a Paris university, worked with le Corbusier's team, and completed graduate studies in architecture thanks to scholarships from UNESCO. He became a Canadian citizen in 1961. Folch-Ribas carried out parallel careers as a teacher, journalist, and art critic in addition to being a novelist. He is the literary columnist for Montréal's La Presse, and the author of a book on the painter and sculptor Jordi Bonet (1964) published in four languages. As a novelist, he published Le démolisseur (1970), Le greffon (1971) and Une aurore boréale (1974). In 1989, he won the Governor General's Award for Le silence ou le parfait bonheur, and in Paris, the prix France-Québec. His next novels are La chair de pierre (1989) that brings together his two adoptive countries (Québec and France) and his two passions (architecture and writing); Premier nocturne (1991), Marie Blanc (1994) and Un homme de plaisir (1997). Recent works have included Des années, des mois et des jours (2001) and Les Pélicans de Georgie (2008), set in the city of Savannah. Paco (2011) takes place against the backdrop of the Spanish Revolution, a setting used by the author for the first time in 40 years and imbued with his childhood memories.

Jacques Folch-Ribas was named to l'Académie des lettres du Québec, the Québec Order of Architects and the International Association of Art Critics. In 1989, he received the prix Duvernay from the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste for his body of work.