The literature of Quebec and of the world is built thanks to writers, of course, but also thanks to enthusiasts like Robert Chartrand, who was, all his life, and in different ways, a leading intermediary. It is with sadness that we have just learned of his passing at the age of 77.
Small second-hand pleasures, a literary program he hosted with ardor, curiosity and finesse, from 1989 to 1999, on community radio CIBL, is unforgettable. Always, the in-depth interviews he conducted with the authors were supported by attentive and sensitive reading and by a brilliant analysis. Robert Chartrand knew how to account for the tonality of the works, their biases, their inspiration. The passages he read aloud bore witness to this perfectly. A leading speaker, master of the verb and collected formulas, he continued this work by doing, from 2002 to 2003, chronicles on American literature for the radio program Present indicativeby Marie-France Bazzo, at Radio-Canada.
Robert Chartrand has also left his mark in the written media by regularly publishing texts in the journal Quebec lettersfrom 1996 to 1997, then as a literary critic and columnist for the newspaper The duty from 1998 to 2005. There he published hundreds of texts that contributed to the recognition of our literature and its development.
We cannot ignore his commitment as a professor of literature at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal, where he taught for more than 40 years. He gave thousands of students the taste for reading with rigor and pleasure, but also for writing with accuracy, vivacity, precision and care.
In retirement, still just as committed, Robert Chartrand put his voice, his intelligence and his sensitivity to good use by reading literary texts for those who have lost their sight, completely or partially: five extraordinary years of volunteering for the Institute. Nazareth and Louis-Braille.
Such fidelity to words and to the imagination is rare and remarkable: it deserves to be underlined.