Past Speaker Bio's
Marie-Claire Blais was born in Quebec City and at the age of 20 she published her first novel, La Belle Bête (Mad Shadows). The American critic, Edmund Wilson, discovered this young lady's writing talent and was instrumental in her receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship. Ms. Blais was living in the U.S when she wrote Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel for which she was awarded France's Prix Medicis. She has published 20 novels, five plays and collections of poems. All have been translated into English. Two of her books have been made into movies, while a third, Visions D'Anna, is currently in production. Her latest novel, Soifs (These Festive Nights) received the Governor General's Award in 1996. Ms. Blais's other accolades include: the 1995-96 International Woman of the Year award from The International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England; a Degree of International Letters for Cultural Achievement for fiction and creative writing from The American Biographical Institute; and Chevalier, Ordre Des Lettres, Ministère de la Culture, Paris, France. Marie-Clair Blais was made a member of the Order of Canada and inducted into the prestigious Royal Academy of Language and Literature of Belgium and Académie des lettres du Québec. For more than 25 years, she has been a dominant figure in Quebec's literary landscape.Omer Boivin (1890 - 1989) was a physician, humanitarian, philanthropist, and avid Francophone, who loved music, finance, and education. Born in Fall River to French Canadian immigrants, he and his three siblings were raised in a French speaking home. He became fluent in English and Portuguese. His love of medicine became apparent at 15 years of age, when he turned in an essay entitled "The Medicine Man." Dr. Boivin graduated from the Baltimore Maryland Medical College and subsequently earned medical licenses in MA, ME, RI, FL and GA. In 1917, he met and married his wife Laurette Menard of Biddleford Maine, while doing a residency there. In 1921, he opened the first urological practice in Fall River, where he treated patients for the next 37 years. Dr. Boivin believed he was in medicine to help people, not make money. He was the guiding force in establishing the School of Nursing at St. Anne's Hospital. He was a professional member of the Fall River Medical Society, the Mass. Medical Society, the American Urological Society, and the American Academy of Medicine. He was president of the France-American Physicians of the US and medical director of L'Union St. Jean Baptiste d'Amerique. He was charter member of the Richelieu Club, director and president of Liberty Loan Company and director of the former Fall River Trust Company. His enthusiastic belief in education led him to lecture throughout the U.S. and Canada. At the age of 97, Dr. Boivin received the Franco-American of Year award from the Franco-American Civic League of Fall River. He donated French language newspapers and clippings dating back to the late 19th century to UMD, which in 1985 created the Boivin Center for French Language and Culture honoring Dr. Boivin and his late wife Laurette. Prior to his passing, Dr. Boivin made generous donations and endowments to a variety of schools, churches and hospitals reflecting his strong humanitarian philosophy and enthusiastic belief in education.
Jacques Borel (1925 - 2002) was one of the most prolific French writers, authors, essayists, poets and playwrights of the 20th century. In 1965, Borel won the famous literary prize Goncourt for his 600-page novel L'adoration, in which he describes his relationship with his mother who raised him in a hotel frequented by prostitutes. Two of his other works, L'attente and Le Retour, also are autobiographical. Borel wrote his last book The Death of Actor Maximilien Lepage in 2001. Nicole Brossard was born in 1943 to a prestigious Montréal family that included a Supreme Court judge and into a repressive culture controlled by the Catholic Church. She credits her personal independence to a breech birth, to a family tradition of high ideals and liberal ideas, and to her suffragist paternal grandmother. As a Québecoise post-modernist feminist writer, Ms. Brossard creates texts that are radical in their approach to gender, sexuality, and literary convention. She co-founded and edited the literary journals La Barre du Jour and Les Tetes de Pioche. She has published 11 books of poetry, six volumes of prose, a play La nef des sorcières, a film Some American Feminist, and numerous essays that have impacted a generation of feminists. Twice, she received the Governor General's Award for Mécanique jongleuse (1974) and Double impression (1984). Her other accolades include: the highest distinction for literature, Le Prix Athanas-David; L'Académie des Lettres du Québec; and an honorary doctorate in Letters and Communication from The University of Sherbrooke.
Dr. Gaëtan Brulotte is a most distinguished Canadian born writer who earned his Ph.D. from the University of Paris VII - Ecole des hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales (France), while working with the world famous French critic, Roland Barthes (on modern French Erotic Literature). This award-winning and widely anthologized Francophone creative writer has published 150 periodic reviews, 35 short stories, 15 poems, 13 books, eight prefaces, and has made numerous contributions to other writers' books. His play, Le Client, was selected out of 85 international submissions judged by 17 specialists for the prestigious Journées d'auteurs of the Théâtre des Célestins in Lyon (France). His works have been translated into several languages, adapted for cinema, television, stage and radio. In 1998, the Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society voted Mr. Brulotte US Artist-Scholar of the Year for his artistic and scholarly achievements. The next year, he received the selective Theodore & Venette Askounes-Ashford Distinguished Scholar Award. Mr. Brulotte has taught French Literature at numerous universities throughout the world and is currently Professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
Pierre Capretz began teaching French in 1949 and soon became dissatisfied with the methods available at the time. In 1960, as Director of Yale University's language development studio, Capretz began experimenting with his own technique. In 1987 he published "French In Action" (FiA) as an in-house method for teaching French language and culture to Yale undergraduates. His 52 lesson multi-media approach to language teaching and learning combines print, audio and visual images into a soap-opera teaching tool of uncommon versatility and power. The boy-meets-girl comedy on which the course is based was scripted into a dramatic video series, making it possible to immerse learners in the reality of French language and culture in new and dynamic ways. By Spring 1990, an estimated eight and a half million people had watched the program on 120 PBS stations. Today, "FiA" is used by over 200,000 students in over 2,000 colleges nationwide. The success of "FiA" has enabled Capretz to transform other cultural materials into interactive language-learning products such as an interactive CD-ROM based on the classic Truffaut film "Jules et Jim." In 1993, Mr. Capretz received an honorary doctorate of Letters from Middlebury College in VT in recognition of his extraordinary contribution and leadership in the advancement of the teaching of French. Mr. Roch Carrier was born and raised in the village of Sainte-Justine-de-Dorchester, Quebec, where there was neither a library nor books. He was educated at the Université de Montréal, and the Sorbonne in Paris where he received a doctorate in literature. Mr. Carrier returned to Montréal and became a resident dramatist with the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. As a writer, he is considered one of Quebec's most celebrated novelists, specializing in children's books, poetry, dramas, and contes (French-Canadian form of extremely short stories). When he was chosen to be Canada's National Librarian, he described himself as "a man of the book." He has been a literature teacher and director of the Canada Council for the Arts. His many honors include the Stephen Leacock Prize for Humor, acceptance as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an Officer of the Order of Canada
Professor William Carter is the most eminent critic of the celebrated French author Marcel Proust. The author gives an entrée into the life and work of this celebrated Frenchman in his book "Marcel Proust: The Great Adventurer."
Stephane Chemlewsky was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of France to Belarus, where he helped the Grodno region improve its tourism, economy and awareness of French culture. In his new position as Consul General of France in Boston, he has attended numerous veteran ceremonies on behalf of the French government to give out certificates of recognition and say "merci beaucoup" to the many U.S. soldiers who participated in the defeat of Axis powers and liberated Europe from the Nazis in WW2. Julia Child is known throughout the world as the grande dame of television chefs. She was born in Pasadena, California, and graduated from Smith College in 1934. During World War II, she served with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C., Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and China. After the war, her husband, Paul Child, was assigned to the U.S. Information Service at the American Embassy in Paris. It was there, in Paris, that Mrs. Child started her culinary career at the Cordon Bleu. In collaboration with her two French colleagues, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, she wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which appeared in 1961. The book gave birth to the PBS television series "The French Chef" and was followed by several other series including the "Master Chef " programs, in which she is host to 26 of America's well-known chefs; "Baking at Julia's", in which she hosted 26 of the country's finest bakers; and the current series with her friend and collaborator, Jacques Pepin. Mrs. Child is an active member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, and a co-founder of The American Institute of Wine and Food.
Albert Coté was born in Lowell, MA adjacent to the "petit Canada" neighborhood and grew up in a French speaking home on Moody Street "in the heart of it all." He earned his degree from Merrimack College and teaches French in Hudson, NH. In 1975, he enlisted the assistance of his wife and daughter in publishing Le journal de Lowell - the only weekly French language newspaper in New England. The Coté family received a "local heroes" award from New England Monthly Magazine for their dedication to providing a voice for their Franco-American community to keep their heritage and language alive. They have subscribers in 40 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico.
Alice Dawn (1941 - 1994) graduated from Connecticut College and Columbia University with degrees in French Literature and French Teaching, respectively. She spent the next three decades as foreign language educator and department chair at Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Friends' Central School, Philadelphia, PA; and Beaver Day School, Chestnut Hill, MA. She was editor of the On Y Va publications and author of French Today chapter tests. Throughout her professional career, Ms. Dawn continued to learn by attending language workshops. For 13 years, she was the secretary of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF). She was a reader for the French Advanced Placement tests, a review committee member for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), and treasurer of the Greater Boston Foreign Language Collaborative. Pierre de Boisdeffre (1926 - 2002) was the son of a finance inspector and attended the École Libre de Sciences Politiques, the Sorbonne law faculty, and Harvard University. In 1946, he was one of the first students to attend the new École Nationale d'Administration, after which he joined the French education ministry. In 1957, he married Beatrice Wiedemann-Gostan, with whom he had three sons. From 1964 to 1968, he was in charge of French radio, before becoming cultural attaché in London. In 1981, he represented France at UNESCO, and was ambassador to Uruguay (1981-1984), to Colombia (1984-1988) and the Council of Europe before retiring in 1991. He was an officer of the Legion of Honor and a Commandeur de L'Ordre National du Merite. De Boisdeffre epitomized the French tradition of combining diplomacy and authorship, as he was one of France's leading contemporary authors. He was also a critique, biographer, anthologist and essayist, who had published over 30 works that were translated into 10 languages. His Métamphoses de la Littérature (1953) won the Grand Prix de la critique. He is best known for his delineated, definitive, and compelling biographies of French luminaries, such as Gide, de Gaulle, Malraux, Barres, Giono, and George Sand. Boisdeffre had interviewed many of the literary giants in French literature, but remained humble and never sought popularity.
Misha DeFonseca was born in Belgium. In 1941, when she was seven years old, her were arrested by the Nazis and she was taken to a "safe" house in Brussels. When she learned that an informant was going to turn her over to the Germans, she fled into the woods and began a four-year search for her parents. She walked over 3,000 miles through eight Nazi-occupied countries surviving only on her ingenuity and the companionship of a pack of wolves that helped to feed, shelter, protect and comfort her along her arduous journey. In 1996, her moving and poignant story was published in her prize-winning memoir Misha, translated from the French Survivre Avec Les Loups.
Hélène Dorion is one of Quebec's foremost popular writers. Her poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary reviews and has been translated into 12 languages. Dr. Yoken described her poetry as "looking deeply into life and its meaning, with its apogees, perigees and vicissitudes. It touches one very deeply." Reviewer Yann Lovelock claims, "She is a poet of contradictions as her work describes all facets of intimate relationships we know so well where one is up one minute and down the next." Author of 14 books, Dorion has won awards including le Prix International de Poésie Wallonie-Bruxelles, Prix Aliénor, Prix Alain-Grandbois de Canadiens, le Prix du Festival International de Poésie de Roumanie and le Grand Prix de la Culture des Laurentides. She is literary director of the Editions du Noroît, a jury member of the Prix Louise Labé and is a highly sought-after charismatic speaker. Normand Demers holds a Masters Degree in Library and Information Studies from McGill University and a Graduate Diploma in International Management from the University du Quebec. Mr. Demers has been managing projects related to the implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for over 15 years. His experience includes the management of several projects implementing ICTs in developing countries, more particularly in Gabon, Madagascar, Mali. As head of Information Services for the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Mr. Demers works mostly in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Le Grand Dérangement is musical performance group from Nova Scotia that uses music, dance, theatre and song to entertain. The eight- piece ensemble, with four step dancers, fuses traditional rock, jazz, Louisiana and Irish rhythms with Acadian cultural sounds to present a multi-dimensional concert that is so vibrant it shocks the audience with its energy and freshness. The group won the 1999 Atlantic Gig's Annual reader's poll for favorite Francophone group of the year. They have performed internationally, throughout Canada and the U.S.
Lisa Gossels created and directed the 1999 film The Children of Chabannes, which is a tale of courage, resilience and love set during WWII. In 1939, Ms. Gossels's father and uncle Werner were sent from their home in Berlin to live in the village of Chabannes, France where they and 398 other Jewish refugee children, ages 2 to 17, were sheltered in a school. When Ms. Gossels learned of a May 1996 reunion of the school's former boarders and their teachers, she traveled to France to film the event as well as to record interviews with individuals who chose action over indifference. Through accounts by the extraordinary teachers who taught and loved these children, this lyrical and moving film shows the remarkable efforts made by the citizens of Chabannes, who risked their lives and livelihoods to protect these children, simply because they felt it was the right thing to do. Ms. Gossels won an Emmy for her 90-minute documentary, which was presented to her by Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. She has also received 10 major awards at film festivals around the world. Naïm Kattan was born in 1928 in Baghdad, Iraq, where he studied law. In Paris, he studied literature at the Sorbonne, under a scholarship from the French government. He immigrated to Canada in 1954, taught at Laval University in Quebec City and, organized cultural life in Quebec and Canada for 40 years as former director of the Canada Council for the Arts. Kattan is a novelist, essayist, literary critic with the Montreal's daily newspaper Le Devoir, and a world-renowned fiction writer, who has had more than 30 publications translated into several languages. Adieu Babylon was an enormous success in France. His personal experience of immigration deeply marks his work, in which he especially strives to be aware of problems generated by collective or individual life, and the adaptation to new mediums. Some topics are recurring such as the meeting of cultures or destiny of his characters. He has won many awards including: the J.I. Segal prize, the Order of Quebec, the Order of Canada, and the Order of Arts and Letters of the French government. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada Naïm Kattan now lives in Montreal where he is an associate professor in the literature department at UQAM.
Serge Kerval (1939 - 1998) was born in Brest and was raised in Angers, where he attended college for violin and vocal training. At 18, he left for Paris to study diction with Marcelle Geniat; singing with Marcelle Gerar; and music with Jean Giraudeau. He was awarded a certificate in lyric career from the Professional Union of French Singing Teachers and a singing award from the Music School in Paris. Regarded as one of the great hopefuls of the "beautiful canto" he performed comic opera, but decided to become a vocal soloist with the National Ballet of French Dances. After three years with that troupe, he staged his own very successful recital in 1976. He recorded 32 records and 9 CD and holds the record for the greatest number of discs recorded over a 20 years period. He received an award from the Academy of French Records and a diploma for The Best Young Recording Artist. He was ranked among the top 10 male voices of French song. Kerval's music was heard around the globe and he enjoyed a strong fan base that appreciated his remarkable voice and the fast disappearing art of the French song with poetic words interpreted from the great French-speaking authors. Kerval was considered the king of French folk music and the last troubadour, who sang with a great tinted sensitivity of joy and melancholy.
Maxime LeForestier is a French singer and composer.
Gérard Le Tendre is a celebrated pianist-songwriter, who has been called "a veritable Maurice Chevalier of the 90s" as he entertains à la Chevalier while accompanying himself on the piano. Critics have stated that, "His music is mesmerizing and enchanting for both young and old." College and university audiences throughout the U.S. have enjoyed the live, lyrical beauty of contemporary French poetry and song. When he isn't performing, Prof. Le Tendre is chairman of the Foreign Language Department at Taft School in Watertown, CT. Marcel Marceau was born in Strasbourg, France and has delighted audiences worldwide for more than 55 years with his solo pantomimes and group mimodramas. Marceau has toured the world with his show 40 times. He's been in scores of TV movies, independent and feature films and had the only speaking role in Mel Brooks' "Silent Movie" (he said, "Non!"). He's written and illustrated several books, received France's highest artist honor -- the French Legion of Honor -- and two Emmys and had Michael Jackson modeled his moon walk on his walk-against-the-wind techniques. March 18 was dedicated as Marcel Marceau Day in New York. Marceau has garnered honorary degrees from prestigious universities across America. He continues to perform and teach in his school in Paris and workshops abroad. He is also an accomplished author, a painter, and a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. He's had three wives, four children, survived the Holocaust, joined the Resistance and marched in Patton's army.
Frédéric Martel was born in 1967 in Avignon (France). He holds graduate degrees in sociology, philosophy, political science, and law. After a position as advisor to former Prime Minister Michel Rocard on social problems, he served as advisor to the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in the Government of Lionel Jospin. He is also the author of The Pink and the Black, Homosexuals in France since 1968, which is a political history of homosexuals in France since 1968. Writer, journalist at the French homosexual weekly Gay Pied Hebdo, and scholar (researcher in sociology at l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - EHESS, Paris), Martel is currently Head of Academic and Cultural Services of the French Embassy in Boston, Massachusetts. Patrick Noé is a prize winning French cordon bleu chef, who began his career helping out at his father's restaurant Le Montparnasse during the 1960s. Noé's perfection of haute cuisine continued at the acclaimed Allegro restaurants in Waltham and Boston. After four years as sous-chef at Saporito's, in Hull, Mass., Noé and his wife, Janet, opened Café Celador in Cambridge in 1994. In 1996, Boston Magazine named it "Best French Bistro." Noé decided to close Celador, after five successful years, to launch into full-time catering and consulting. In 2002, Noé was hired as Executive Chef of Margo Bistro at the Harborside Inn on State Street.
Alice Parizeau (1930 - 1990) was considered one of the greatest Quebecois writers of all times. Mrs. Parizeau was born in Cracow, Poland and survived the Bergen Belsen concentration camp during WW2. She received the Liberation Cross medal for her courage in facing the enemy at Varsovie. In France, she received a lawyer's license and a diploma in political science. She married Jacques Parizeau, who later became the leader of the Parti Quebecois. Alice worked as a rehabilitation officer in Montreal's City Hall, a journalist, a radio researcher and criminologist. Her novel, Les lilas fleurissent à Varsovie, won first prize in the European Association of French language writers (ADELF).
Jacques Parizeau, an economist, who graduated with a Ph.D from the London School of Economics in London, England, was one of the most important advisors to the provincial government during the 1960s, playing an important behind the scenes role in the Quiet Revolution. He was instrumental in the nationalization of Hydro-Quebec and in the creation of the Quebec Pension Plan. In 1969, Parizeau became a strident sovereigntist and officially joined the Parti Québécois (PQ). When René Lévesque was elected, Parizeau was made Finance Minister and created the Quebec Stock Savings Plan (QSSP). In 1927, he married lawyer/writer Alice Poznanska, who passed away in 1990. In 1988, Parizeau was elected PQ leader and kept his promise to hold a referendum vote on Quebec sovereignty, but it was defeated. Parizeau retired to private life, but continues to express his enthusiasm for Quebec independence from his vinyard estate in France, his farm in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and his home in Montreal. Lois Pines has a distinguished career in law and government that began in Newton, MA, where she was Alderman-at-large (1971-73) and State Representative (1973-78). Pines served (1984-86) as Executive Director of the International Coordinating Council, where she helped Massachusetts businesses enter the lucrative European and Japanese foreign markets. In 1986, she was elected State Senator from the Middlesex-Norfolk District (Newton/Brookline), where she chaired the Commerce and Labor Committee, the Commission on Early Childhood Program and was a member of the Committee on Banks and Banking. As New England Regional Director of the FTC, Pines was the highest -ranking woman in the Carter Administration. She spent three years helping consumers and small business owners fight unfair practices in the marketplace. As a member of the Governor's Export Advisory Council (1990), Pines focused on the state's economic response to the consolidation of the European Economic Community. Pines sponsored legislation establishing Massachusetts' only international education training centers for public school teachers. For this, she was the first person to receive the Mass. Foreign Language Association's special certificate of appreciation, given to an individual outside the profession, who has done the most to promote and encourage language study.
Polly Platt, the best selling author of "Savoir Flair" and "French or Foe," takes a humorous approach in her examination of the complex relationship between the French and Americans. Her in depth analysis of the French and French culture, becomes a fascinating and amusing "how to" manual for the uninitiated American. Polly Platt has lived in France for the last 25 years, and she also runs "Culture Crossings" - a training organization for cross-cultural exchanges.
Prof. John Rassias is a native of Manchester, New Hampshire and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Bridgeport. As a Fulbright scholar, he studied at the Université de Dijon in France, where he received his doctorate. He also did research at the Sorbonne, where he studied French drama, and acted in Paris. He joined the Dartmouth College faculty in 1965 and was promoted to Chairman of the French and Italian studies department in 1967 when he developed the Rassias Method® or the Dartmouth Intensive Language Model. This innovative and highly effective approach to teaching language employs some fifty dramatic techniques that banish inhibitions to learning foreign languages. Not only has his approach been adopted by all the language departments (Chinese, French, German, Modern Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish) at Dartmouth College, but the Rassias Method® has been adopted by language teachers in hundreds of colleges, universities, and high schools in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia, and is currently being used for instruction in 180 languages. Professor Rassias has gone far beyond the classroom in expanding and sharing his innovative approach to the instruction of language and culture. Thanks to Professor Rassias, statistics now show a reversal in the downward national trend to the point where enrollments in foreign language courses have increased remarkably. Anne-Christine Rice was born in New Orleans and graduated with a BA in political science from San Francisco State University. She married her childhood sweetheart, Stan Rice, but their five-year old daughter died of Leukemia. In 1976, Rice wrote her first book, Interview with a Vampire, and followed up with 24 novels, with 50 million in print. Her textbook "Cinema for French conversation" provides a springboard for French discussion of 20 commonly available French language films. Rice's book appeals to students who need to gain skills and vocabulary over a wide range of French historical and cultural topics. Topics of discussion are developed which lead the student not only to understand each film, but to also appreciate aspects of French culture and context. When this Queen of the Occult and High Priestess of Horror isn't defining language through film, she buys and lovingly restores dilapidated historic homes in New Orleans. She is most proud of her son, who is a screenwriter in California.
Anne Royer is a leading French singer and entertainer.
Peter Sandler is a well-known translator and a freelance writer. A product of Middlebury College’s celebrated École Française, Sandler’s translations have appeared nationally and internationally. Senator Paul Simon (1928 - 2003) was born in Eugene, Oregon, shortly after his parents returned from China, where his father was a Lutheran missionary. He enrolled in the University of Oregon in 1945 at age 16 and transferred to Dana College in Blair, Neb., in 1946 when his parents moved to southern Illinois. Simon was just 19 when he dropped out of college, borrowed $3,600 and accepted a local Lion's Club challenge to save the Troy Tribune - 13 failing weekly newspapers in Troy, a town of about 1,500 across the Mississippi River from St. Louis. He became the nation's youngest editor-publisher. In 1966, he sold the enterprise to devote himself full-time to public service and writing. He served in the United States Congress from 1974 to 1997, thirteen years as senator. He taught political science, history and journalism, and headed a public policy (bipartisan think tank) institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He was a prolific writer, having published 21 books on myriad topics. He held 55 honorary degrees, and was the only congressman to hold the title of honorary member of the AATF (American Association of Teachers of French).
Jean-Françoise Somain was born in Paris in 1943 and moved with his family to Buenos Aires and subsequently settled in Montreal. He studied in Ottawa and Manitoba before marrying Micheline Beaudry. In 1970, he earned an economics degree from the University of Ottawa. During his career at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, he had occasion to visit over 70 countries on seven continents, from which he derived material for his books. Somain started writing at 15 under the pen name Christian Vasneil. He created the magazine La Forge, which he circulated in Montreal. Under the pen name Somcynsky, he published 35 works (29 short stories, five news collections and one poetry collection), over 85 reviews and anthologies for Quebec, France, Belgium and Japan. He also wrote theatre scripts that were read on the radio or performed on television. He received the Solaris Award, two Boréal Awards, the French Book Club's Esso Award, and the Louis-Hémon Award from the Academy of Languedoc. Novelist, storyteller, short story writer, poet and playwright, Jean-François Somain remains interested in all the forms personal art including fiction, poetry, theatre, radio, adventure, and science fiction. He lives with his wife in Lake Bell, Gatineau.
Dr. Madamou Soumaré studied the Soninke and French languages in his hometown of Mali, West Africa. He is an Associate Professor of comparative literature at Ecole Normale Superieure in Bamako, Mali. He lived in Marburg, West Germany, for seven years, where he earned a Ph.D in African Studies from Phillips University. While there, he studied German, Political Science and African studies. He appreciates the irony that, because of limited resources in Africa, he had to go to Europe to study his own culture. As a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence he brought his perspectives on language, literature and life from Mali to the small liberal arts college in Bradford, Mass., where he taught a "Gobal Perspectives" class on the connections between African and African-American Oral Literary Traditions and led the "Senior Seminar on Aesthetics" class. He can converse in six languages. Ms. Lucie Therrien is a composer, certified teacher, linguist, filmmaker, historian and speaker. She has performed across the US, Quebec and France, and has participated in cultural exchanges in North Africa, Vietnam, Martinique and Cuba. As a widely published Franco-American artist, she has to her credit numerous videos, recordings, a songbook and two research books. French-educated, she holds a B.A & M.A. in music. As a touring artist with the Council on the Arts since 1983, she has received several Fellowship Finalist Awards, nominations to the New Hampshire Governor's Arts Awards, the National Endowment of the Arts Folk Heritage Fellowship, three Traditional Arts Masters teaching awards, as well as film awards. Ms. Therrien was listed in the 2000 International Who's Who in Music.
Brian Thompson holds three degrees from Harvard, is the Modern Language Chair at University of Massachusetts at Boston, where he has taught since 1968. He has lectured and published widely here and abroad, and is well known in particular for his pedagogical workshops. He has written two books and has translated nine others. He has produced a series of one-hour programs on social and ethical issues for CCTV. He is currently the President of the American Association of French Teachers in Mass. He has been co-director of Earthen Vessels Summer Camp since 1980.
Dr. Roger Violette (1908 - 2003) was the past-president of the Richelieu Club and a member of the Franco American Civic League and Association Francophone. He was born in Fall River and graduated from McGill University School of Medicine, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Violette was in private practice for 50 years and was also physician for the Fall River School Department. An Army Air Force veteran of World War II, he served in the Pacific as a flight surgeon, achieving the rank of major. A philanthropist who was committed to education, Dr. Violette made a generous endowment to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, having received an honorary degree from the university and having the Violette building for the education of nursing students named in his honor. Dr. Violette sponsored the restoration of the telescope at Durfee High School, now named the Dr. Roger Violette Observatory and he helped sponsor the restoration of the Durfee Bell Tower. Maia Weschler is a filmmaker who created the documentary "Sisters in Resistance," which explores the story of four French women who in their teens and early twenties risked their lives to fight against the Nazi occupation of France. These women were not Jewish or Communists, and were not at risk for arrest until they joined the Resistance. Within two years, all four were arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Ravensbruck concentration camp as political prisoners. They all survived with one another's help. Today they remain purveyors of conscience, activists and intellectual leaders in their field. Ms. Weschler's award-winning film brings to life their story of courage and friendship that continues to this day.
Richard Wilbur is a playwright, editor, translator, and former U.S. Poet Laureate, who has taught at Harvard, Wellesley College, Wesleyan University, and Smith College. He has won unanimous praise for his verse translations of French plays and for his lyrics to the Broadway musical Candide. All his translations are marked by an urbane, melodic style, which has established him as the premier translator of French verse drama. Wilbur has twice won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize (1957, 1989), National Book Award, Yale's Bollingen Prize for Poetry, and the PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Academy of American Poets. His works include New and Collected Poems and Mayflies.
Frederick Wiseman was born in Boston, Mass. and educated at Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass. He earned a law degree from Yale University and worked as a law professor until he turned to television documentary filmmaking in 1967. He is arguably the most important American documentary filmmaker of the past three decades, functioning as producer, director, and editor of over 30 films, all of which have been broadcast on public television. Wiseman's films focus is on the everyday travails of the least fortunate Americans caught in the tangled webs of social institutions operating at the community level. His first film, Titicut Follies (1967), of the Massachusetts State Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Bridgewater, was such a vivid exposés that the political machine barred it from public showings until 1993, when a judge lifted the ban. Wiseman's 29th project turned the lens on "La Comédie Française" - the oldest continuous theatre company in the world. Created in the 17th century by Louis XIV, the members of the Paris-based theatre troupe are elected for life. Wiseman shot 126 hours of footage and spent a year editing it down to three hours and forty minutes. Wiseman has won several Emmys, a Columbia duPont Award, a Peabody Award, an International Documentary Association Career Achievement Award, a Lifetime Achievement Award from Human Rights Watch, the prestigious MacArthur Prize Fellows Award, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship.
Last Updated On: 11/1/05
