Adrienne Choquette
Adrienne Choquette was a notable Canadian author born in 1915 in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec. She was the daughter of physician Henri Choquette and Rose Albertine Amyot Choquette. After her mother's early death, she pursued her education at a Catholic Ursuline school in Trois-Rivières before embarking on a career as a civil servant and journalist. Choquette gained initial acclaim with her first book, *Confidences d'écrivains canadiens-français*, which featured interviews with French Canadian writers. However, her subsequent work, *La Coupe vide*, tackled themes considered too provocative for conservative Quebec at the time. Despite initial mixed reviews, her 1954 short story collection, *La Nuit ne dort pas*, garnered her significant recognition, winning a prestigious award.
Her most acclaimed work, the 1961 novel *Laure Clouet*, tells the story of a woman's awakening to autonomy following her mother's death, intertwining social realism with subtle critiques of conservative societal norms. This novel not only solidified Choquette’s status in Canadian literature but also encouraged French Canadians to reflect on social restrictions. Through her writing, Choquette made significant contributions to the exploration of identity and societal expectations within the context of Quebec's cultural landscape.
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Subject Terms
Adrienne Choquette
Author
- Born: July 2, 1915
- Birthplace: Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Canada
- Died: October 13, 1973
Biography
Adrienne Choquette was born in 1915 in Shawinigan Falls, Quebec, Canada, to physician Henri Choquette and Rose Albertine Amyot Choquette. Her mother died when Choquette was still a very young child. Adrienne attended the Catholic Ursuline school in Trois-Rivieres and later worked as a civil servant and as a journalist for the Trois-Rivieres radio station CHLN.
Her first book, Confidences d’écrivains canadiens-français, comprised a compilation of interviews with French Canadian writers and was very well received. Ten years later, she published her next book, La Coupe vide, about a strange, erotic woman who casts a spell upon a group of teenagers—subject matter considered much too extreme for conservative Catholic Quebec. This work was not as well received as her first book, but critics began to view her in a more positive light after the publication of her 1954 book of short stories La Nuit ne dort pas, which won the Quebec Ministry of Cultural Affairs’ prestigious award, the Prix David.
This success was followed by her award-winning, enormously popular 1961 novel Laure Clouet, a work of social realism, which won Choquette the Prix du Grand Jury des Lettres and planted her firmly amid the Canadian literary lights. Often compared with Gustave Flaubert’s short story “A Simple Heart,” the novel details the life of Laure Clouet, a woman who grows into her own at the age of forty-two upon the death of her extremely controlling mother. Simple acts of everyday decision-making, without any input or orders from her mother, bring Laure great joy. While she must puzzle over whether to allow a young couple to stay in her house, even after asking a priest for guidance, she finds that she must make up her own mind.
Although, on the surface, Laure Clouet seems to be a work of traditional social realism, Choquette subverts its implied style by subtly mocking conservative Quebec, forcing French Canadians to examine accepted social restrictions.