André Langevin
André Langevin was a prominent Canadian author born on July 11, 1927, in Montreal, Quebec. He faced a challenging childhood, losing both parents at a young age and spending seven years in an orphanage, which he later described as a mix between prison and asylum. His literary career began in the mid-1940s when he worked for the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir and later joined Radio-Canada, where he produced both scientific content and dramatic pieces. Langevin's writing was heavily influenced by existentialist thinkers, and his novels often explored themes of abandonment, despair, and the human condition. His notable works include "Evadé de la nuit," "Poussiere sur la ville," and "Une Chaine dans le parc," which reflect his deep understanding of flawed characters grappling with their inner struggles. Throughout his career, he received several prestigious awards, including the Prix du Cercle du Livre de France and the Montreal Grand Prize. Langevin's work has garnered international recognition, particularly in the United States and France, and continues to resonate with readers interested in the complexities of human experience.
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André Langevin
Author
- Born: July 11, 1927
- Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
- Died: February 21, 2009
Biography
André Langevin was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on July 11, 1927, to parents Raoul Langevin and Brigide Graval Langevin. His parents died when he was seven and he was sent to an orphanage, where he was educated for seven years in a system he later referred to as a “mélange of prison and asylum.” He went on to the Collège de Montréal, and in the mid-1940’s found messenger work at the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir. He was soon offered a position overseeing the literary section, and after two years he moved to the newspaper Le Temps to head up its literary section. In 1948, he began working for Radio-Canada, the French-language network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), where he remained in various capacities, including scientific producer and adviser.
During his newspaper years, Langevin read the works of existentialists Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre, whose vision of the human condition heavily influenced his novel writing. In his debut novel Evadé de la nuit (1951), the main character is abandoned by his father and sent to an orphanage, and both a new father figure and the protagonist eventually choose suicide, unable to face their human failures. In his novel Poussiere sur la ville (1953; Dust over the City, 1955), a young doctor discovers his wife’s affair and becomes dysfunctional; the town intervenes in his behalf, only to have his wife kill herself when she is separated from her lover. Les temps des homes (1956) features another orphan, a defrocked priest who tries to save a murderer’s soul, although the murderer accidentally dies and the priest commits suicide.
Langevin did not publish another novel for fifteen years, during which time he wrote dramatic pieces for Radio-Canada and contributed to periodicals such as Le Nouveau Journal and Maclean’s. He wrote two plays in the 1950’s, both produced in Montreal at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. In the 1970’s he returned to novel writing with the political allegory L’Elan d’Amerique (1972), about a character who commits suicide after a failed effort to help another character. Langevin considered Une Chaine dans le parc (1974;Orphan Street, 1976), his novel about an orphan passed from one institution to the next, his most difficult work; he has said that he struggled to find “the right language” and to “exclude the pathos.” Langevin’s narrative style changed somewhat between the 1950’s and 1970’s, with his later novels using stream-of-consciousness and a heightened lyricism, but his themes of abandonment, loneliness, despair, and failure to recognize one’s own flaws, and his symbolic likening of human failures to Quebec’s own, remained constant. Both his fiction and nonfiction have been praised for the author’s understanding of wounded characters trying to fight back their darkness.
Langevin won the Prix du Cercle du Livre de France in 1951 for Evadé de la nuit and in 1953 for Poussiere sur la ville. His play L’Oeil du peuple won first prize in the dramatic competition at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde in 1958. He was awarded a senior fellowship at the Canada Council in 1959; the Prix Liberté for journalism in 1967; and Le Grand Prix Litteraire de la Ville de Montréal (Montreal Grand Prize) in 1973 for the novel L’Elan d’Amerique. He enjoyed an international following through the 1970’s for his novels, plays, essays, and radio scripts. Dust over the City was especially popular in the United States, as was Orphan Street in the United States and France. In February, 2005, Dust Over the City was read on the CBC and chosen as one of the forgotten literary treasures of Canada.