Michel Beaulieu

Beaulieu, Michel

Michel Beaulieu, writer, literary critic and translator (b at Montréal 31 Oct 1941; d there 10 July 1985). He studied at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf then at the arts faculty of Université de Montréal. In succession art critic, subeditor and director of Quartier latin (1961-64), he founded L'Odyssée (1963), the student paper for the arts faculty, before being elected (1964) director of publications for the Association générale des étudiants.

In 1963 he became a journalist with La Presse and founded, with Gaston MIRON, Les Éditions Estérel. He was theatre critic for Le Devoir, 1971-72, and helped found the Centre d'essai des auteurs dramatiques and the review, Jeu. He was simultaneously critic, publisher, journalist and translator, and worked for many periodicals both in Québec and abroad. He published his first collection of poetry in 1964, Pour chanter dans les chaînes, and by 1985 had brought out some 20 titles, including 3 novels, as well as some 15 radio plays.

But it was in poetry that he distinguished himself primarily. He received the 1973 award from the review Études françaises for his collection Variables; won the Grand Prix littéraire of the Journal de Montréal in 1980 for his retrospective Desseins, poems 1961-67; and received a Governor General's Award (1982) for the collection Visages and, posthumously, the Prix Gatien Lapointe (1985) for Kaléidoscope.