Michel Tremblay à l’honneur au Centre culturel Canadien

// 7 p.m. – An evening with Michel Tremblay // 

On the occasion of the publication of his new novel La grande mêlée by Éditions Actes-Sud (in bookstores on March 7, 2012), the Canadian Cultural Centre will be hosting a conversation between Quebec author and playwright Michel Tremblay and Armelle Héliot, theatre critic and journalist for French newspaper Le Figaro and the radio show Le Masque et la Plume on France Inter.

With La grande mêlée, Michel Tremblay links his two great novel cycles: “La saga des Desrosiers”, based on the youth of Nana and which ends when she meets Gabriel, and “Les Chroniques du Plateau-Mont-Royal”, set twenty years later, Nana has become “the fat woman next door” during the dark days of the Second World War.

Born in Montreal in 1942, the prolific playwright, scriptwriter and novelist Michel Tremblay is the author of several literary cycles, notably the “Belles-Soeurs” cycle and the “Chroniques du Plateau-Mont-Royal”. In the “La Diaspora des Desrosiers”, Michel Tremblay writes about the childhood of Nana, a character inspired by his mother and who will become the famous “fat woman next door”, the cornerstone of his captivating fictional world. The cycle comprises La Traversée du continent (June 2008), La Traversée de la ville (March 2009), La Traversée des sentiment (June 2010) and Le Passage obligé (March 2011). Michel Tremblay has written some sixty works, published by Actes Sud in France.

// 8:30 p.m. – Performance of Gloria la si peu glorieuse, adapted from a novel by Michel Tremblay //

Gloria la si peu glorieuse, directed by actress Geneviève Boivin, is an adaptation of Michel Tremblay’s novel Le trou dans le mur, which was published in 2006. 

“The truth is dull, kid, always. And it always needs a bit of a helping hand. Legends are based not on facts but on what you decide to do with them. Mine is no exception. I’m the only one to blame and I’m proud of it!” – extract from Gloria la si peu glorieuse

“It was while reading Gloria la si peu glorieuse, based on Michel Tremblay’s novel Le trou dans le mur, that I had the idea of adapting it for the stage. A first adaptation was produced by Lionnel Astier and finished by me. I’m now going it alone to tell the tale of this passionate woman, playing the singer from the Main in Montreal to Miami. She’s burdened by her impulses, her throat tight with failure and humiliation. A life of illusions, obsessive ambitions and broken dreams.” Geneviève Boivin – director and actress 

Free admission with reservations: jean-baptiste.lebescam@international.gc.ca / 01 44 43 24 91