François Ricard


François Ricard is a Canadian writer and academic from Quebec. He has been a professor of French literature at McGill University since 1980, including a special but not exclusive focus on the work of Milan Kundera and Gabrielle Roy, and has published numerous works of non-fiction.

Background

Born and raised in Shawinigan, he was educated at McGill University and the University of Provence.
He was a founder of the literary journal Liberté, has served on the editorial boards of the publishing houses Éditions Sentier and Éditions du Boréal, and has contributed to both Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec as a literature reviewer and a host of documentary programming on Quebec literature and history.

Awards

He won the Governor General's Award for French-language non-fiction at the 1985 Governor General's Awards for La littérature contre elle-même, and Gabrielle Roy: A Life, an English translation by Patricia Claxton of his 1996 book Gabrielle Roy, une vie, won the 1999 Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize and the Governor General's Award for French to English translation at the 1999 Governor General's Awards.
The original French edition of Gabrielle Roy, une vie was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award at the 1997 Governor General's Awards, and Le dernier après-midi d’Agnès: essai sur l’oeuvre de Milan Kundera was nominated at the 2003 Governor General's Awards.

Works