Gérard Bessette

Canadian Gérard Bessette was a well-known writer, critic and educator who studied at the University of Montréal, where he completed his doctorate in 1950. He then became a professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and taught there until 1958, before returning to Canada and teaching until 1960 in Kingston at the Collège Militaire Royal du Canada, and until 1979 at Queen’s University of Kingston. During this time Bessette published novels about society in Québec City and Montréal, in which he denounced the influence of tradition on social and aesthetic standards. Ironically he experimented with various forms of expressionism and was considered a pioneer of psychoanalytic literary science.

Le coureur was one of his early poems, which he published at the age of 27 in Le coureur et autres poèmes. He won the second prize of the Concours littéraires du Québec and was accordingly selected to represent Canada in the Olympic Art competitions.