HÉMON, LOUIS. - Novelist, b. at Brest on 12 Oct. 1880, d. at Chapleau (Canada) 18 July 1913. He settled in the forests of Peribonka in Canada, leading there the life of the lumberjacks and attentively observing their environment and customs.

The fruit of this study was the novel Maria Chapdelaine (Montréal 1916). Considered today among the masterpieces of modern French literature, it initially had little success when published in Le Temps. Only when Daniel Halévy republished it in his Cahiers verts did critics and the public realize the work's value. In it Canada was discovered in its traditions, in its profoundly Catholic character, in its attachment to the mother country, in its French sentiments. The poetry of a land separated from France for over a century, yet still living spiritually on its past, fills the whole book.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: L. Daudet, Un chef d'oeuvre français sur le Canada, «Maria Chapdelaine», in Action Française, 8 June 1921; H. Bordeaux, Portraits d'hommes, I, Paris 1924; A. Mac Andrew, L. H., sa vie, son oeuvre, ibid. 1936.

Costanza Pasquali

@incollection{ec6_hemon_louis, author = {Pasquali, Costanza}, title = {Hemon, louis}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VI}, pages = {1401}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/hemon-louis} }

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Hémon, Louis

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