André Langevin

André Langevin’s novels, influenced by French existentialism, feature characters who struggle to escape their despairing solitude and attain genuine communication and identity in a hostile world. The characters often fail and his books contain all the fatal elements of classical tragedy. His first, Évadé de la nuit (1951), a compelling drama of human incommunicability, was followed by his most celebrated work, Poussière sur la ville (1953). In this novel, translated as Dust over the City (1955), he relates the tragedy of a young doctor in a mining town who fights against his personal destiny and strives, in vain, to find meaning in an absurd world. Similarly, Le Temps des hommes (1956) features characters that seem to be the playthings of a cruel fate. Set in a lumber camp in northern Quebec, the novel features a defrocked priest who turns from God to help people but can neither save a murderer’s soul nor redeem his own.

In his symbolically complex work, L’Élan d’Amérique (1972), a man and a woman strive to reconcile their past with their present, while his Une Chaîne dans le parc (1974) revisits many of his first novel’s themes in the story of a young orphan who, a victim of adult violence and indifference, takes refuge in an imaginary world. He also wrote news stories, several radio dramas and two plays: Une nuit d’amour (1954), which takes place in 18^th century Acadia, and L’Œil du peuple (1957), a satire on municipal politics and renowned Québec Premier Maurice Duplessis.

In 1978, André Langevin was appointed a Great Montrealer in the cultural category. He was recognized for his body of work with the Prix Athanase-David in 1998. He passed away in 2009.

André Langevin was named a Commander of the Order of Montréal in 2016.