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Exhibit celebrates a Manitoba icon

Gabrielle Roy's works on display in Ottawa

By: Mia Rabson

Posted: 11/25/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Gabrielle Roy is seen in 1945 photograph. Roy was a prolific writer whose work has a global reach. (ANNETTE AND BASIL ZAROV / LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA)

OTTAWA -- She was a daughter of Manitoba and an author whose works transcend and unite French and English Canada.

Now Gabrielle Roy is the star of a new exhibit at the Library and Archives Canada in downtown Ottawa.

The national archives is celebrating the 100th anniversary of Roy's birth with a six-month display, showcasing her life and works using some of the pieces from its vast Roy collection.

The exhibit chronicles Roy's life using a mix of notebooks and handwritten manuscripts from her works, photographs, letters she penned to her sister and mother, original copies of some of her books, paintings and portraits and tributes from other authors. Among the items are photos of her childhood home on Deschambault Street in St. Boniface, which is now a museum -- La Maison Gabrielle Roy.

Exhibit curator Monique Ostiguy, an archivist in the literary manuscripts section of Library and Archives Canada, said the Roy collection was acquired in the early 1990s and the exhibit is a way to celebrate Roy and "show the richness of the collection."

"It is the most consulted (collection)," Ostiguy said. "Every month, there are at least four or five requests to come to see the archives of Gabrielle Roy."

She said it's not just academic researchers and literary scholars who want a peek. One request came from someone writing a history of skiing in Quebec who knew about a photo of Roy skiing in the province. Another came from someone who wanted to see manuscripts of the novel Enchanted Summer for inspiration to create paintings of the Charlevoix region in Quebec, where the novel is set.

Born in St. Boniface in March 1909, Roy was the daughter of two francophones from Quebec who moved to Manitoba when it was still officially a bilingual province. She was a teacher and actress in Manitoba before she began to pursue her passion for writing.

Her first published articles appeared in 1939 in a weekly publication in Paris. One of them discussed her French roots in Manitoba.

Roy's first and perhaps most well-known novel, The Tin Flute, was published in French in 1945.

She would go on to write dozens of books including fiction, non-fiction and children's stories and won numerous awards. She has her own stamp and a quote of hers appears on the $20 bill.

Roy grew up in Manitoba but spent her adult years mainly in Quebec and drew upon her experiences in both provinces for many of her novels.

"For Manitobans she is a Manitoba writer," said Ostiguy.

"And she really defended the rights of franco-Manitobans. But for Quebecers she is a Quebec writer."

All of her books were written in French but were almost all immediately translated and published in English. She has been translated into more than 18 languages.

The exhibit runs through May 9 and admission is free. Parts of the exhibit and information from it can be found at the Library and Archives Canada website, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 25, 2009 A4

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