Straightforward and unprepossessing, René Lévesque was the most unlikely leader. Yet his charisma affected even those who disliked his political aims. Born into a Quebec dominated by the Catholic Church, rural values, and anglophone control of business, he was part of the 1960s Quiet Revolution that saw the province become a secular society bent on economic success—and political independence. A journalist, war reporter, and television host, Lévesque channelled his communication skills into a political career that encompassed the most tumultuous periods in Canadian history. And in 1980, as founder of the Parti Québécois, he held a referendum that permanently altered the country’s political landscape. Acclaimed novelist and translator Daniel Poliquin offers a unique portrait of Lévesque the man and politician, at once affectionate, critical, and incisive.

Extraordinary Canadians Rene Levesque

Poliquin, Daniel

Biographies & Memoirs

Penguin Canada

He was the most unlikely leader: straightforward, uninterested in personal wealth, unprepossessing. Yet his charisma affected even those who disliked his political aim to achieve independence for Quebec. René Lévesque was born into a Quebec dominated by the Catholic Church, rural values, and Anglophone control of business. He was part of the 1960s Quiet Revolution that saw the province become a secular society bent on economic success and, for some, political independence. A journalist, war reporter, and television host, Lévesque channelled his communication skills into a political career that encompassed the most tumultuous periods in Canadian history. As founder of the Parti Québécois, he held a close referendum in 1980 that proved wrenching for Canadian unity and permanently altered the country's political landscape. Acclaimed novelist and translator Daniel Poliquin offers a unique portrait of Lévesque the man and politician, at once affectionate, critical, and incisive.

Community & Culture

VIKING

Obomsawin of Sioux Junction

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Douglas & McIntyre, Limited

The straw man: A novel

Douglas&McIntyre

Winner of the 2001 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing.
 Daniel Poliquin's mordant, polemical essay-novel created a storm upon its publication in Quebec in the fall of 2000. Not only did this Franco-Ontarian take on every sacred cow of Quebec nationalism, he did it in an outrageous and extremely witty manner. Poliquin has created two fictional characters, M. Labine and M. Lesieur, who represent the federalist and sovereignist positions in Quebec. He has great fun analyzing and dissecting these men, especially M. Lesieur. In the process he lays bare what he sees as the nationalists' father complex and the underlying cartoonishness of their thinking.
 Sacred cows such as the great martyr Lucien Bouchard, Hydro Quebec, de Gaulle's "Vive le Quebec Libre," and the Night of the Long Knives (the repatriation of the constitution) are skewered. Touchstone ideas such as the perilous position of the French language, the vacuousness of English Canadian culture and the irrelevance of any francophone living outside of Quebec are subject to hilarious and devastating attack. 
In the Name of the Father is an extended tiff on the question of who is colonially minded -- the Quebecois who looks beyond his borders to understand the world, or those completely ignorant of the outside world? Is the book unfair? Possibly. Is it refreshing and a joy to read? Yes. Le Devoir calls the book "vengeful" and says it will "make you grind your teeth." But Poliquin is far from an enemy of Quebec. He supports Bill 101 and recognizes how important nationalism was in the emergence of Quebec from its oppression by the anglophone minority.

In the Name of the Father: An Essay on Quebec Nationalism

History

World

Douglas & McIntyre, Ltd

In the fall of 1914, young Lusignan sets off for the Great War, having already survived a tragicomic Catholic childhood and a career as a disgraced author and journalist. But shortly before departing for Europe, he has an encounter with his fellow officer d'Argentuil suave, self-possessed, both a man of the people and an aristocrat that proves to be the defining moment in his life. Lusignan returns from the war a broken man, kept alive by a convoluted plan to reconnect with d'Argentuil by shadowing his old flame, the genteel Amalia Driscoll. Helping him in his plan are the young maid Concorde, another of d'Argentuil’s hookups, and the Capuchin monk Father Mathurin, who longs for martyrdom in a foreign land. As their lives interweave and their futures rise and fall, what emerges is a vivid evocation of an entire society in the midst of an astonishing transformation.

A Secret Between Us

Contemporary

René Lévesque

Genre Fiction

BOREAL

L'homme de paille

L' Omsawin

BIB QUEBECOISE

L'Obomsawin (French Edition)

United States

PRISE DE PAROLE

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Books by Poliquin, Daniel