Jovette Marchessault

The recorded working language is French. Work by Jovette Marchessault is recorded in the collections of Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts and Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. Distinctions recorded are Governor General's Literary Awards and Companion of the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec.

• Name — Jovette Marchessault • Born — February 9, 1938 • Birthplace — Montreal, Quebec • Died — December 31, 2012 • Occupation — novelist, playwright, artist • Period — 1970s–2000s • Notable Works — La Terre est trop courte, Violette Leduc; Le Voyage magnifique d'Emily Carr

Born in Montreal, Marchessault worked in a textile factory in her youth before travelling extensively in the late 1950s on a journey of self-discovery that would inform much of her work. By 1970, she was regularly exhibiting artwork in Montreal, Toronto, New York City, Paris and Brussels. She published her first novel, Le Crachat solaire, in 1975; this would be the first volume in her Comme une enfant de la terre trilogy, which also included the novels La Mère des herbes (1981) and Des Cailloux blancs pour les forêts obscures (1987). As a playwright, she published numerous plays; her early works Les Vaches de nuit, Les Faiseuses d'anges and Chronique lesbienne du moyen-âge québécois were also republished in 1980 in one volume as Triptyque lesbien. Marchessault contributed as a journalist to publications such as Le Devoir, Châtelaine, La Vie en rose, La Nouvelle barre du jour, Fireweed and 13 Moon. She co-founded the publishing house Squawtach Press, and was a lecturer in the theater department at the Université du Québec à Montréal.