After battling brain cancer, Quebec author Simon Roy had recourse to medical assistance in dying on Saturday afternoon, the Éditions du Boréal said in a press release.
At the end of June, Mr. Roy shared news about his state of health on his Facebook page. He announced that his tumor was progressing rapidly and that he had greatly lost his “language skills”.
He indicated in his publication that the doctors estimated that he had about two months left to live. “I intend to request medical assistance in dying towards the end of August. I accept this fate as calmly as possible, I had been preparing for it for 16 months now. Still, it’s a damn slap, “he said.
Before passing away, he dictated a message to his wife Marianne Marquis-Gravel so that she published it on social networks. He mentioned that he planned to share a last meal with his partner and his children, that he would take a last cup of wine in honor of the life he led and that he would listen to a song that is dear to him, before taking his last breath.
“During these last minutes, the children will put a hand on my cheeks and Marianne will snuggle her head against my heart. I hope to be fully conscious, with my eyes wide open so that I can look at them one last time and smile wide at them,” reads M’s Facebook post.me Marquis Gravel.
Simon Roy taught literature at Collège Lionel-Groulx, but he was first known for his book My Kubrick Red Lifepublished in 2014, and winner of the Prix des Libraires du Québec that year.
His works will follow Owen Hopkins, Esquire, Made by another and his most recent novel which marries fiction and reality my end of the world, released last May. The latter offers a reflection on fear based on his experience as well as that of authors Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick and Orson Welles.
His publisher mentions in a press release that his books have sometimes relied on “an obsessive analysis of the film The Shining by Stanley Kubrick. He wondered in particular about the possibility of continuing to live when our life is marked by tragedy. A theme he evokes in his latest novel where he approaches “dizzyingly” his own death.
“There is no doubt that the work he leaves us, marked by a profound originality, will have forced us to recognize that the stories, inextricably mixing reality and lies, constitute the very substance of our lives”, wrote the Editions du Boreal.
His spouse Marianne Marquis-Gravel, who recently signed her first novel entitled In the light of our ignorancewho talks about her relationship with her lover Simon Roy, shared a moving message on Facebook.
She says that over the past few days, Simon Roy’s condition had deteriorated and he had difficulty standing. “He chose to use medical assistance in dying in order to leave lucid and conscious. He left us this afternoon at 3 p.m. at home, gently and with total acceptance. He had been ready for days, but he wanted to be present at my birthday. Simon pure and hard, until the last breath. He even made jokes until the last seconds, ”she testified.
In addition to his partner Marianne Marquis-Gravel, Simon Roy is survived by his children, Romane and Colin.