All stories relating to Dany Laferriere
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Quebec author Georges Anglade dies in Haiti earthquake
Two of the latest victims of the tragic earthquake in Port-au-Prince are Quebec author Georges Anglade and his wife, Mireille. The two were there on a family holiday, and Anglade was meant to take part in the international literary festival Étonnants Voyageurs, which has now been cancelled.
Georges Anglade, former professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, was 65. From CTV:
Georges and Mireille Anglade were trapped in the rubble of a home on Tuesday and did not survive. They became the second and third Canadians killed by the Caribbean catastrophe.…
A former political prisoner under the Duvalier regime, [Georges] was active in pushing for democracy in the poverty stricken country and wrote several books.
The literary festival announced on its (French-language) website that although its organizers were in Port-au-Prince at the time of the disaster, they are now safely out of harm’s way. Among those mentioned was Haitian-born Canadian author Dany Laferrière (Q&Q’s September cover author), who co-chairs the festival. Laferrière, who won France’s Médicis literary prize last year, returns to Canada tonight.
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Laferrière wins Medicis
Montreal author (and recent Q&Q cover star) Dany Laferrière is on a roll lately. After winning the $10,000 Blue Metropolis Literary Grand Prix last week, he has now been named recipient of France’s illustrious Prix Medicis literary award, alongside U.S. author Dave Eggers.
According to AFP:
Laferrière won the Medicis for L’enigme du retour (The Enigma of Return), a fictionalised account of the 56-year-old author’s soul-wrenching return to his native Haiti to attend his father’s funeral. Born in Port-au-Prince but now living in Montreal and Miami, Laferrière has explored the themes of identity and exile in some 20 novels over the past 25 years.
Laferrière won the French-language prize, while Eggers won the prize for best foreign novel for his 2006 work What Is the What? Lafèrriere is only the second Canadian novelist to win the Medicis. The first was Marie-Claire Blais, who won in 1966 for Une saison dans la vie d’Emmanuel.
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