Author's picture © Justine Latour
Author's picture © Justine Latour

Perrine Leblanc is a Quebecois writer. She was born in Montreal, raised in Arthabaska and lives in Gaspésie (Gaspé peninsula). She holds degrees in literature from Université Laval (Québec) and Université de Montréal. She worked as an editor, notably for Leméac and VLB éditeur, before publishing in 2010 her first novel, L'homme blanc (Governor General's Literary Award for french fiction, Grand prix du livre de Montréal, winner of the Combat national des livres, Radio-Canada's version of Canada Reads). The following year, L'homme blanc was published in the Collection Blanche by Gallimard under the title Kolia (longlisted for the french Elle magazine’s Grand prix in 2011-2012). The book is among the twenty best Quebec novels published between 2000 and 2020 according to L'inconvénient magazine. Following Malabourg (2014, finalist for the Prix Françoise-Sagan in France), Gens du Nord (Gallimard, 2022), which is partly set in Ireland during the Troubles, was a finalist for the prestigious Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie. In 2023, Perrine Leblanc was awarded the Prix du Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec - Artiste de l'année en Gaspésie (CALQ prize - Artist of the year in the Gaspé Peninsula).

 

From the Soviet camps to Ireland, via the Gaspé Peninsula, Montreal, Paris, Bucharest and New York, Perrine Leblanc develops, in a clean and powerful style that is attentive to the subject, a body of work tightly woven, rigorous and open to the world.

 

Kolia was published in 2013 (english translation of L'homme blanc) and The Lake was published in 2015 (english translation of Malabourg by Lazer Lederhendler, and a finalist for a Governor General's Literary Award for Translations in english).