Nicole Brossard
Born in Montreal (Quebec), poet, novelist and essayist Nicole Brossard published her first book in 1965. In 1965 she cofounded the influential literary magazine La Barre du Jour and in 1976 she codirected the film Some American Femnists. She has published eight novels including Picture Theory, Mauve Desert, Baroque at Dawn, an essay "The Aerial Letter" and many books of poetry including Daydream Mechanics, Lovhers, Typhon dru, Installations, Musee de l'os et de l'eau. She has won the Governor General award twice for her poetry (1974, 1984) and Le Grand Prix de Poesie de la Foundation les Forges in 1989 and 1999. Le Prix Athanase-David, which is for a lifetime of literary acheivement, was attributed to her in 1991. That same year she received the The Harbourfront Festival Prize. In 1994, she was made a member of L'Academie des Lettres du Quebec. Her work has been widely translated and anthologized. Mauve Desert and Baroque at Dawn have been translated into Spanish. In 1998 she published a bilingual edition of an autofiction essay titled She would be the first sentence of my new novel/Elle serait la premiere phrase de mon prochain roman(1998). In 1989, a book of her poetry in translation, Installations, was released, translated by Erin Moure and Robert Majzels. Nicole Brossard lives in Montreal.
“Loving a woman is always political.”
“To be a poet is to place pleasure, beauty and sensual delights front and centre, it means having a predilection for debauchery.”
“La terrasse bruisse d'un va-et-vient de tons montants, descendants, neutres qui font comme des exclamations et des glissades d'eau au milieu du chant des oiseaux.”
“Je suis partout où je suis.”
“[...] cela m'excite de penser à tout ce qui fuit dans la vie au nom de la vie.”
“Je ne connais, disait Tatiana, aucune étreinte qui soit feinte. Toutes les étreintes sont par définition spontanées. Le jour où elles ne seront que le résultat musculaire de pensées calculatrices, l'humanité s'en ira, sang ancien, couler hors de nous.”