This text is part of the special Acfas awards
A great specialist in Quebec, French and Belgian literatures, Michel Biron has contributed through his research to better understand their history by working on the most diverse literary forms, ranging from the novel to the theater, including poetry, essays and the epistolary genre. . The originality of his approach and the scope of his work have made the professor, historian and essayist a reference in the field.
For thirty years, the researcher has offered to explore in an innovative way the place of the literary in society. By rethinking, among other things, the genesis of the works – a corpus grouping together the classics as well as the so-called minor genres such as travelogues – and by placing writings at the heart of his work, Michel Biron has made it possible to review the very development of literature in the past. Quebec.
Isabelle Daunais, professor and director of the Department of French Literature, Translation and Creation at McGill University, underlines her rigor, her “independence of mind” and “her exemplary commitment to scientific life”. Both the scope of his research and the finesse of his knowledge earned him the André-Laurendeau Prize for the Human Sciences this year.
“I was extremely surprised. I fell from my chair. For me, this recognition is as unexpected as it is precious, ”he reveals.
This prize is added to the many other distinctions which have recognized the originality and the quality of his work. Shortly after obtaining his doctorate from the University of Liège, Belgium, in 1991, he won the 1993 Polanyi Prize for the best researcher in literature in Ontario. Accumulating honors, he has notably received the Gabrielle-Roy Prize twice, the Jean-Éthier-Blais Prize three times, and last year the Lorne-Pierce Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, in recognition of his work as a literary criticism.
The taste of literature
A great reader since always, Michel Biron remembers having been marked by a teacher. “I had a teacher, Richard Valiquette, in 3e or 4e secondary school, which made us write daily thoughts every day, and he answered all of our texts. It was there that I saw that one could by words really mean something other than by speaking. “
He also evokes notable people during his graduate studies, such as the writer and literary critic Gilles Marcotte and Laurent Mailhot, emeritus historian of Quebec letters. The latter was a mentor to him. “It was a living encyclopedia. I never pretended to be up to him! He knew everything, and I was passionate about it, ”underlines Michel Biron, who remains very humble in front of his own influence.
Generous in turn, he has since played this same role with young researchers. Jean-Pierre Bertrand, professor at the University of Liège, describes him as a man “particularly gifted on the educational level, very attached to transmitting and disseminating his knowledge, which is immense”. Previously at the University of Ottawa and the University of Quebec in Montreal, Michel Biron has now held a full professor position at McGill University since 2002. He was also, for ten years, holder of the Chair of Canadian research in Quebec literature and French-speaking literatures.
His expertise is recognized beyond Quebec and academia. His works are constantly cited when we are interested in literature, Quebec and its culture. The book History of Quebec literature, which he co-signed, is also considered a reference tool and one of the rare syntheses on the subject.
Constantly renewed interest
The affection that the thinker and theorist has had for so many years for literature and its history is unwavering. “Our relationship to the present is rooted in the past. It’s interesting to make connections between what was and what is today. Right now, what motivates me the most is to think about the contemporary world in a more historical perspective. “
For Michel Biron, although the fight for greater representativeness remains to be waged, the more significant emergence, for example, of marginalized literatures could be explained in particular by the weakening of authority.
“Today, there are still hierarchies, there are prices in the academic world, in the literary world. There is still power that is at stake, but the power is very variable. There is the possibility of bringing in all kinds of voices, which have not been heard so far. We just have to think of native literature. It’s still a new phenomenon here that was unthinkable 50 years ago, ”observes the one who dedicates his career to better understanding the social and cultural imagination of Quebec.