“Marie-Claire Blais has built an admirable body of work throughout her career, but she has above all made her life a body of work. She was part of this generation that wanted to reinvent everything: love, friendship, life. His ambition had no limits,” breathes publisher Jean Bernier.
His voice is still filled with emotion when he talks about his long collaboration and his long friendship with Marie-Claire Blais, who died last November. “We often say that Quebec is a little literature, but for her, that has never been the case. She comes from a modest background, but from adolescence, she saw herself as the equal of Virginia Woolf, Faulkner, Proust and other great writers whose work dialogued with the world.
Like her mentors, she was able to grasp the chaotic flow of thoughts, embrace the areas of light and shadow of humanity as a whole and give voice to the disinherited, the marginalized and the marginalized, to saints like philosophers, tyrants and bandits alike. His pen, unique and exacting, gave life to a thousand other unforgettable voices, which reflect the greatest beauties and the greatest tragedies of the history of the West. “His ability to be moved by the fate of others was unparalleled. From the first day I met her, I was blown away by the assurance, empathy and wisdom of this woman of incredible strength,” adds Jean Bernier.
To celebrate this immense legacy – bequeathed to both readers and writers who follow in its footsteps – the International Literature Festival, in complicity with Éditions du Boréal, has chosen to pay tribute, as part of its opening, to the immense, unfinished and unfinishable work of Marie-Claire Blais, to the broken song of the world and its possible reconciliation, which she knew how to immortalize on paper.
Portrait of an era
In The writer with a thousand voices: tribute to Marie-Claire Blaisthe actors will deliver excerpts from his greatest novels — performances that will testify to the richness, relevance and depth of the obsessions, figures and intentions that punctuated his work — and will thus show with what acuity and mastery she managed to capture the identity of an era.
“Like all successful period portraits, Marie-Claire Blais manages to grasp, in the maze of current events, the immutable nature of humanity. The demanding form in which she wrote makes it possible to transcend simple commentary or political speaking. She was not content to denounce injustices and cruelties. She sought to understand the part of humanity that they contained. By staring the incomprehensible in the face, she managed to penetrate the mystery of the world”, maintains Jean Bernier.
For the publisher, who also works as a literary advisor for the show, it was essential to convey, through the choice of excerpts, the recurrence of themes dear to the author, in particular those that are often forgotten. “I believe it is important to do justice to his attachment to the excluded, the sick, as well as to his Dionysian side, which is reflected as much in the excess of his prose as in his fascination with nightlife and stockings. -funds. I also suggested that we focus on this question of the humanity of monsters and executioners, which she refused to exclude, as well as on her sense of humor and extraordinary irony. »
An inspiration
The excerpts read will intertwine with testimonials from writers marked, directly or indirectly, by the prose, vision or accomplishments of Marie-Claire Blais. Nicole Brossard, Robert Lalonde, Kevin Lambert, Catherine Mavrikakis, Christiane Teasdale and Audrée Wilhelmy will share short texts that will testify to the influence of the writer on their life, their writing and their relationship to literature.
“During a literary festival in Nantes, I had the chance to spend a full evening with her,” says Audrée Wilhelmy. She spoke to me about writing, the commitment it represents in a lifetime, its demands, and the importance of giving yourself up to it entirely. Whenever I make a choice about my career, I keep his words in mind to ensure that I live up to that commitment and that totality. »
Catherine Mavrikakis, for her part, did not know much about the woman behind the writer. “She was important to me in a secret way, through a personal and emotional relationship to reading. Her work placed her above all of us, calling us to think up an eminently demanding literature. »
The writer emphasizes her great ability to make American voices heard in her language, “as if she were able to Frenchify all of America. Although our works are very different, I have the impression that she gave me the possibility, the permission to write the North American continent in French”.
Although the work of Marie-Claire Blais takes the form of a dense, nuanced and clairvoyant portrait of the 20e century, the show The writer of a thousand voices highlights its relevance, beyond historical and political contexts, beyond literary trends. “Because she was aware of the past and the world around her, she embodied a form of prescience. She had everything of a visionary,” says Audrée Wilhelmy. “It reminds us that the battles we are waging today are part of the logic of history, that tragedies – like misery – are condemned to be repeated and to last”, concludes Catherine Mavrikakis.
The writer with a thousand voices: tribute to Marie-Claire Blais will be presented on Friday, September 23, at 8 p.m., in the Auditorium of the Grande Bibliothèque.