Yves Beauchemin

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Yves Beauchemin, writer (b at Noranda, Qué 26 June 1941). Before becoming a Radio-Québec researcher, Beauchemin taught and worked in publishing. His first novel, L'Enfirouapé (1974), discovered by bookseller Henri Tranquille, was a burlesque replay of certain events of the 1970 October Crisis. Le Matou (1981; tr The Alley Cat, 1986) describes the crazy, tragic adventures of a young Montréaler who decides to free himself from a collective history of economic dependence by running a restaurant. The work earned its author the Grand Prix de la Ville de Montréal. In 1982, Beauchemin was awarded the Cannes Prix du livre de l'été for Le Matou; in 1985, he won the Prix du public at the Salon du livre de Montréal. Le Matou was made into a film by director Jean Beaudin (1985) and broadcast as a television series in 1987. At the Montréal World Film Festival the film won the Air Canada Prize as most popular film. In the same vein, Beauchemin published Juliette Pomerleau (1989; tr Juliette, 1993), which earned him the Prix du public at the Salon du livre de Montréal (1989), the Prix des arts Maximilien-Boucher (1990) and the Prix Jean Giono (1990). He followed this with Second violon (1996) and Les Émois d'un marchand de café (1999). Inspired by the childhood and adolescence of his two sons, Beauchemin has also written for young readers, entertaining them with Une histoire à faire japper (1991) as well as Les aventures de Antoine et Alfred (1996), Alfred sauve Antoine (1996) and Alfred et la lune cassée, which was published the same year. Beauchemin was inducted into Quebec's Académie des lettres in 1993 and appointed Officier de l'Ordre national du Québec in 2003.