Renowned Quebec essayist, publisher, and professor of literature François Ricard is no more. He died at the age of 74 after a long illness.
“In François Ricard, Quebec is losing one of its finest thinkers and one of its greatest essayists. He also loses an ardent defender of literature, for him synonymous with freedom and audacity, in which he believed deeply, ”said his publishing house Le Boréal on Friday, announcing the sad news by means of a press release.
Born on June 4, 1947 in Shawinigan, François Ricard studied at McGill University and then obtained a doctorate in literature at the University of Aix-en-Provence, France, in 1971. Returning to Quebec, the same year, he became a professor of French literature and Quebec literature at McGill University, until 2010.
François Ricard has made himself known to the general public above all by publishing several outstanding works. Among other things, testing literature against itself (1985) and The lyrical generation (1992), still considered today as an essential study on the baby-boomer generation.
He was also Gabrielle Roy’s friend and biographer. It was at his request, in 1996, that he published Gabrielle Roy, a life. He was also at the head of the Gabrielle-Roy fund, recalled his publishing house. “He played a very important role in the preservation and dissemination of the work of the great novelist. He had been chosen by Milan Kundera to produce the prefaces for the reissues of all of his works, including in the prestigious La Pléiade collection. »
In addition to publishing at Boréal, François Ricard had been a member of the editorial committee there since 1983. He directed the “Papiers collés” collection there. He has accompanied many authors in their writing process, including Fernand Dumont, Serge Bouchard, Gilles Archambault, and André Major.
During his career, he was also very present in the Quebec media. He was a critic, columnist but also host of literary programs at Radio-Canada in the 1970s. He also directed the magazine Freedom.
François Ricard received two Governor General’s Awards in 1985 and 2003 as well as the Quebec Athanase-David Prize in 2018.
Further details will follow.