Claude-Henri Grignon
| Claude-Henri Grignon | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 8, 1894 Sainte-Adèle, Quebec |
| Died | April 3, 1976 |
| Occupation | novelist, critic, radio and television writer |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Period | 1920s-1960s |
| Notable works | Le Secret de Lindbergh, Un Homme et son péché, Les Belles Histoires des pays d'en haut |
Claude-Henri Grignon (July 8, 1894 – April 3, 1976)[1] was a Canadian novelist, journalist and politician, most famous for his novel Un Homme et son péché.
Born in Sainte-Adèle, Quebec, he was a cousin of writer Germaine Guèvremont.[2] He began working as a journalist in 1916, writing for a number of publications in Quebec, including La Minerve, Le Matin, Le Canada, Le Petit Journal, La Revue populaire, La Renaissance and Bataille. He published his debut novel, Le Secret de Lindbergh, in 1929, and followed up with Un Homme et son péché in 1933 and the short story collection Le Déserteur et autres récits de la terre in 1934. As well, he was a prominent literary and political critic, whose non-fiction works included Les Vivants et les autres, Ombres et Clameurs and Les Pamphlets de Valdombre, a trenchant satire of the government of Maurice Duplessis.[3]
By satirizing rather than glorifying life in rural Quebec, Un Homme et son péché broke with Quebec's literary conventions of its time, and came to be recognized as one of Quebec's first influential modernist novels.[1] Ironically, his cousin Germaine's novels Le Survenant and Marie-Didace are considered to be the last influential examples of Quebec's more traditionalist romans du terroir.[2]
Les Pamphlets de Valdombre also first advanced the theory that publisher and literary critic Louis Dantin was the real author of the poetry of Émile Nelligan;[4] although the claim was widely derided and denied by Dantin himself, it was later readvanced by literary historian Yvette Francoli in her 2013 book Le naufragé du Vaisseau d’or.
He subsequently wrote a radio dramatization of Un Homme et son péché, as well as the television adaptation Les Belles Histoires des pays d'en haut. The novel has also been adapted as a film three times, including 2002's Séraphin: Heart of Stone.
Grignon later served as mayor of Sainte-Adèle from 1941 to 1951.
Works
- 1922 - Les Vivants et les autres
- 1929 - Le Secret de Lindbergh
- 1933 - Ombres et Clameurs
- 1933 - Un homme et son péché
- 1934 - Le Déserteur et autres récits de la terre
- 1935 - Précisions sur « Un homme et son péché »
- 1936 - Les Pamphlets de Valdombre
References
- 1 2 Claude-Henri Grignon at The Canadian Encyclopedia.
- 1 2 French Canadian Writers: Germaine Guèvremont at Athabasca University Centre for Language and Literature.
- ↑ William H. New, The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada. ISBN 0-8020-0761-9.
- ↑ Gaëtan Dostie, "Nelligan et de Bussières créés par Dantin ?". Le Patriote. Republished by the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society of Montreal, July 22, 2015.