François Ricard

François Ricard (4 June 1947 – 17 February 2022) was a Canadian writer and academic from Quebec. He was a professor of French literature at McGill University since 1980, including a special but not exclusive focus on the work of Milan Kundera and Gabrielle Roy, and has published numerous works of non-fiction.

Biography
Born and raised in Shawinigan, Ricard was educated at McGill University and the University of Provence.

He was a founder of the literary journal Liberté, has served on the editorial boards of the publishing houses Éditions Sentier and Éditions du Boréal, and has contributed to both Radio-Canada and Télé-Québec as a literature reviewer and a host of documentary programming on Quebec literature and history.

Ricard died in Montreal on 17 February 2022, at the age of 74.

Awards
He won the Governor General's Award for French-language non-fiction at the 1985 Governor General's Awards for La littérature contre elle-même, and Gabrielle Roy: A Life, an English translation by Patricia Claxton of his 1996 book Gabrielle Roy, une vie, won the 1999 Drainie-Taylor Biography Prize and the Governor General's Award for French to English translation at the 1999 Governor General's Awards. The original French edition of Gabrielle Roy, une vie was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award at the 1997 Governor General's Awards, and Le dernier après-midi d’Agnès: essai sur l’oeuvre de Milan Kundera was nominated at the 2003 Governor General's Awards.

Works

 * L'art de Félix-Antoine Savard dans « Menaud, maître-draveur », 1972
 * Gabrielle Roy, 1972
 * Une liaison parisienne, 1980
 * Le Prince et la Ténèbre, 1980
 * L'Incroyable odyssée, 1981
 * La Littérature contre elle-même, 1985
 * Guide de la littérature québécoise, 1988
 * La Chasse-galerie et autres récits, 1989
 * La Génération lyrique, 1992
 * English translation The Lyric Generation, 1994
 * René Richard : 1895-1982, 1993
 * Gabrielle Roy : une vie, 1996
 * English translation Gabrielle Roy: A Life, 1999
 * Le Temps qui m'a manqué, 1997
 * Le Pays de Bonheur d'occasion et autres récits autobiographiques épars et inédits
 * Introduction à l'œuvre de Gabrielle Roy : 1945-1975, 2001
 * (éd.) Gabrielle Roy, Mon cher grand fou, 2001
 * Le Dernier Après-midi d'Agnès : essai sur l'œuvre de Milan Kundera, 2003
 * Chroniques d'un temps loufoque, 2005
 * Moeurs de province, 2014