Marguerite-A. Primeau

Marguerite-A. Primeau (1914–2011) was a Franco-Albertan writer who spent most of her writing career in Vancouver.

Personal life

Primeau was born in St. Paul, Alberta in 1914. She was raised in a devoutly Catholic milieu and attended a convent school, from which she was expelled for reading novels outside of designated hours.

Primeau served as a teacher for 10 years before enrolling at University of Alberta in Edmonton in 1943, where she came under the influence of writers like Simone de Beauvoir and Colette. She eventually retired from the university in 1979, but continued to write. She died in 2011, at the age of 97 years.

Writing career

Primeau began writing fiction in the late 1950s, starting work on her first novels Dans le muskeg (In the Muskeg) and Maurice Dufault, sous-directeur (Maurice Dufault, Vice-principal) around this time. The teacher also falls in love with a Métis woman named Antoinette Bolduc but declines to marry her, causing him to bear a lifelong regret.

While the manuscript had been completed much earlier, Maurice Dufault, sous-directeur only appeared in 1983 after a troubled and winding publication process. E. D. Blodgett was a major advocate for its publication; he wrote a preface to the original version that was declined by the publisher, but was much later invited to write the preface for its English version, translated by Maureen Ranson. Unlike Georges Bugnet, who immigrated from France to Alberta, she was born and raised in the province; unlike Alberta-born Nancy Huston, who writes in French despite not being a native speaker, she was raised in a Francophone milieu; and unlike Franco-Albertans Marie Moser and Jacqueline Dumas, who mainly wrote in English, she wrote her major works in French. Sauvage-Sauvageon and many of her later stories feature characters (often of Albertan origin) who establish themselves in British Columbia.

In 2024, Primeau was one of five French-Canadian writers (along with Dany Laferrière, Antonine Maillet, Jean-Marc Dalpé, and Marie-Claire Blais) to be honored by Canada Post with a commemorative stamp.

Works

Novels

Dans le muskeg, 1960 Maurice Dufault, sous-directeur, 1983 English translation: Maurice Dufault, Vice-principal, tr. Maureen Ranson, 2006 (University of Calgary Press) Sauvage-Sauvageon, 1984 (Éditions des Plaines) English translation: Savage Rose, tr. Margaret M. Wilson, 1999 (Ekstasis Editions)

Short story collections

Le totem, 1988 (Éditions des Plaines) English translation: The Totem, tr. Margaret M. Wilson, 2002 (Ekstasis Editions) Ol' Man, Ol' Dog et l'enfant et autres nouvelles, 1996 (Éditions du Blé), expanded in 2004