A well-known figure in the literary community in Quebec, the poet and publisher Normand De Bellefeuille died Monday at the age of 74.
Normand De Bellefeuille will have worn several hats during his life: poet, critic, professor of literature, novelist, short story writer and even editor. He was part of this generation of poets who emerged in the 1970s around the avant-garde literary journal Red herbs, which called into question the fixed codes associated with poetry. “The formalists”, of which Normand De Bellefeuille was a member, disagreed with the lyricism which until then had dominated poetry, having fun in particular by deconstructing syntax.
“The intelligence of Normand de Bellefeuille was literary, stylistic, biting and intellectual. It circulates everywhere in his books to thwart reality, that of verbs, of I, of silence in order to replay it, to laugh at it too. His insight was formidable, caustic,” praised the poet Nicole Brossard, pioneer of the formalist movement, in writing on Tuesday.
In the 1980s, Normand De Bellefeuille gradually moved away from this school of thought to adopt a more sensitive, more intimate style of writing, less focused on form. “He kept a playful side with the language that comes from the formalists, but he went much further. There are very deep emotions in his work. He is a great poet of pain,” notes Pierre Nepveu, professor emeritus of literature at the University of Montreal and specialist in Quebec poetry.
Pierre Nepveu is saddened by the death of Normand De Bellefeuille, whom he often worked with and of whom he has excellent memories. For the professor and writer, there is no doubt that this disappearance is a “heavy loss” for Quebec literature.
“He was a discreet person. He’s not a media person. His name probably doesn’t mean anything to many people. But he is a poet who deserves to be read. It is a demanding, but accessible poetry,” underlines Pierre Nepveu.
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Throughout his career, Normand De Bellefeuille has received many distinctions. His collection The Blind Man’s Walk without his dog won the 2000 Governor General’s Award, one of the most prestigious honors in poetry in the country. In 2017, the Quebec government awarded him the Athanase-David Prize, which each year honors the work of a significant writer.
His latest collection of poems, History of the wind, was published in 2020. Normand De Bellefeuille has also published novels and collections of short stories, such as What Alice said, winner in 1989 of the Radio-Canada short story competition.
But Normand De Bellefeuille was above all an important figure in publishing in Quebec. Between 1997 and 2010, he was literary collection director at QuébecAmérique, one of the major publishing houses in Quebec, where he gave a chance to several authors such as Jean-François Beauchemin and Stéphane Dompierre. He also worked at Éditions Druide.
“He was a very good editor. Not very interventionist. He had great respect for the authors. He was just making sure we got where we needed to go with our writing. He was a very sensitive person. Besides, he always told me that he had a lot of trouble saying no to manuscripts,” remembers the writer Alain Beaulieu, published by Druide.