Gabrielle Roy

Early Life and Education

The granddaughter of Québécois pioneers in Western Canada, Gabrielle Roy was the youngest in a family of 11 children. According to first-hand accounts, she began to write at a very early age. Her gift for storytelling was instilled by her immigration agent father, her mother and her sister, Marie-Anna. Roy experienced frail health as a child. She was also affected by her family’s financial difficulties and the injustice of the Thornton Act of 1916 (also called the School Attendance Act), which abolished the teaching of French in schools. (See Manitoba Schools Question.)

Despite all this, Roy excelled as a student at the Académie Saint-Joseph and at the Winnipeg Normal Institute (see Normal Schools) before pursuing a career as a teacher. Her experiences between 1929 and 1937 as a teacher in smalltown Manitoba, in places like Waterhen and St. Boniface, exposed her to the vast Western landscapes and the ethnic mosaic that would generously inform her writing.

Split between pursuing literature or the theatre (she performed with Le Cercle Molière), Roy left for France and England to study drama. After two disappointing years, she decided to devote herself entirely to writing. She moved to Montreal, where, under the direction of her literary advisor, Henri Girard, she became a freelance journalist with La Revue Moderne and Le Bulletin des agriculteurs.

Career HIghlights

Gabrielle Roy’s exposure as a journalist to Montreal’s poverty-stricken Saint-Henri district inspired her to write what would become the first major Canadian urban novel. Bonheur d'occasion (1945) denounced the condition of workers and the underprivileged at the beginning of the Second World War. The book also broke from the values of patriotism, religion and attachment to the land.

Bonheur d'occasion was a huge success. It was the first Canadian book to win the Prix Femina, a French award, in 1947. (See also Literary Prizes in French.) It was also translated into a dozen languages. The English version of the novel, The Tin Flute, sold more than 700,000 copies. Universal Pictures paid a large sum for the rights, but the film version was only made in 1983, in Quebec, by Claude Fournier and producer Marie-Josée Raymond.

Having married Dr. Marcel Carbotte, Roy left once again for a three-year sojourn in France. There she wrote La Petite Poule d'Eau (1950), which was inspired by her time in the Waterhen area of Manitoba. Returning from abroad, Roy settled in Quebec City. In 1957, she bought a cottage in Rivière-Saint-François, Charlevoix County. Despite suffering from regular bouts of depression, she wrote the bulk of her work there, while continuing to travel across Canada, the United States and Europe. She died of a heart attack at l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec hospital in Quebec City in 1983 at the age of 74.

Characteristic Style

Gabrielle Roy was one of the great contemporary writers on the human condition. A tormented and solitary personality, she was afflicted by numerous contradictions and a longing for her Western roots — fragile and endearing at the same time. She wrote of the existential malaise of modern man (Alexandre Chenevert, 1954); of the endless quest of the artist (La montagne secrète, 1961); of Indigenous peoples torn between two worlds (La rivière sans repos, 1970); of the harmony of the mystical soul with nature (Cet été qui chantait, 1972); of the difficulties of pioneer life in the West (Un jardin au bout du monde, 1975); and of the journey of a mother with a vagabond soul (De quoi t'ennuies-tu, Éveline ?, 1982).

Roy transposed her childhood and adolescent memories into Rue Deschambault (1955), La route d'Altamont (1966) and Ces enfants de ma vie (1977). These themes found their full expression in her autobiography La détresse et l'enchantement (1984), followed by Le temps qui m'a manqué (1997), both published posthumously.

In addition to children's stories (Ma vache Bossie, 1976; Courte-Queue, 1979), Gabrielle Roy also produced a collection of news articles and essays. She also produced Fragiles lumières de la terre (1978), a volume of correspondence, as well as Ma chère petite sœur – Lettres à Bernadette, 1943-1970 (1988) and numerous unpublished works.

Roy’s oeuvre is marked by a constant questioning. She offers a vision of humanity afflicted by problems of instability, lack of communication, and a complex and ambiguous relationship with the environment. Yet her work is ultimately redeemed by its aspirations to a perfect, fraternal and united world. Simple in appearance, her style seduces through an erudite and sophisticated blending of the powerful shortcuts of North American language with the purest French classicism.

Biographies

In addition to numerous academic studies, the life and work of Gabrielle Roy have inspired several biographies and essays: François Ricard’s Gabrielle Roy (1975) and Gabrielle Roy, une vie (1996); Monique Genuist’s La création romanesque chez Gabrielle Roy (1966); Marc Gagné’s Visages de Gabrielle Roy (1973); Annette Saint-Pierre’s Gabrielle Roy : Sous le signe du rêve (1975); M.G. Hesse’s Gabrielle Roy par elle-même (1985); and Ismène Toussaint’s Les Chemins secrets de Gabrielle Roy – Témoins d'occasions (1999).

A Radio-Canada television series about the early life and career of Gabrielle Roy, Le monde de Gabrielle Roy, premiered in 2021. Starring Romane Denis as Roy, the series has been nominated for multiple Prix Gémeaux. It was scheduled to start its third season on 5 December 2024.

Honours

In 1956, Gabrielle Roy received the Prix Ludger-Duvernay from Montreal’s Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste for her contributions to French Canadian literary culture. She received the Prix David from the Prix du Québec in 1971 and the Molson Prize in 1977, both in recognition of her body of work.

Roy was declared a National Historic Person by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada in 2009. The designation noted how Roy’s “mastery of the art of storytelling, her profound humanity, and her limpid prose have assured her an enduring place in the literary landscape.” Her childhood home at 375 Deschambault Street in St. Boniface, where she lived from her birth in 1909 until 1937, was also declared a National Historic Site in 2009. It was designated a Historic Site of Manitoba in 1987 and began operating as the Gabrielle Roy House Museum in 2003.

In 2004, the Bank of Canada issued a $20 bank note as part of its Canadian Journey Series that included a quotation from Roy’s 1961 novel La Montagne secrète (The Hidden Mountain). An English version of the passage by translator Harry Binsse was also included.

Roy was posthumously inducted into the Winnipeg Citizens Hall of Fame in 2005. In 2021, she was named one of 150 Manitoba Woman Trailblazers by the Nellie McClung Foundation. Across Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, at least a half-dozen schools or colleges have been named in her honour. So too is the central branch of Quebec City’s public library system, the Bibliothèque Gabrielle Roy. An extensive collection of Roy’s manuscripts, published and unpublished works and other materials is held at Library and Archives Canada.

(See also French Canadian Literature; Popular Literature in French; Children’s Literature in French.)

Awards

• Médaille de l'Académie des lettres du Québec (1946)
• Governor-General's Literary Award for Fiction (The Tin Flute, translation of Bonheur d'occasion), Governor General of Canada (1947)
• Prix Femina (Bonheur d'occasion, The Tin Flute) (1947)
• Member, Royal Society of Canada (1947)
• Lorne Pierce Medal, Royal Society of Canada (1947)
• Prix Ludger-Duvernay, Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste (1956)
• Governor-General's Literary Award for Fiction (Street of Riches, translation of Rue Deschambault), Governor General of Canada (1957)
• Prix David, Prix du Québec (1971)
• Molson Prize, Canada Council for the Arts (1977)
• Governor-General's Literary Award for Fiction (Ces enfants de ma vie, translated as Children of My Heart) Governor General of Canada (1978)
• Canada Council Children's Literature Prize – French (Courte-Queue), Canada Council for the Arts (1979)
• Inductee, Winnipeg Citizens Hall of Fame (2005)
• Manitoba Woman Trailblazer Award, Nellie McClung Foundation (2021)