The fonds contains records pertaining to the writing career of Francine Ouellette. It includes manuscripts, typescripts and research material for novels, stories and children's books that she published between 1984 and 2018. It also has unpublished works, texts by the writer for magazines, books and an exhibition, texts written by others about her and her work, and correspondence.
Ouellette, Francine, 1947- : Novelist. Born in Montreal, Francine Ouellette studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal before becoming an art teacher at the Polyvalente de Mont-Laurier. In the 1970s, she gave up teaching to devote herself to flying and to writing.
Her first novel, Au nom du père et du fils, published in 1984, and its 1985 sequel, Le sorcier, were great popular successes. The two novels were adapted for television in 1993 and 1994; these were watched by 2.5 million viewers. Between 1984 and 2007, Ouellette published 11 novels, two children's books and an illustrated philosophical text, Bip (Libre Expression, 1995), later republished with two new sections under the title Bip : Fantaisie philosophique (Alexandre Stanké, 2001). Several of her other works have been republished. She also wrote a play and an opera, both unpublished.
Ouellette is one of Quebec's leading writers of historical novels. She is known for portraying the daily lives of ordinary people rather than major historical events in her works. Ouellette was among the first to address particular themes in French-language literature in Canada for general audiences, such as pedophilia among the Catholic clergy (Au nom du père et du fils), Indigenous perspectives on the history of New France (Le sorcier and the Feu series), and the importance of the Ottawa River in the encounter between Europeans and Canada's Indigenous peoples (La rivière profanée).
Over the course of her career, Francine Ouellette has received numerous literary awards. With Au nom du père et du fils, she won the Jury's Choice Award at the Prix littéraire France-Québec (1986) and the "Prix du grand public" at the Salon du livre de Montréal - La Presse (1993). Le grand blanc earned her the Grand Prix from the Journal de Montréal in the "Readers" category (1994). With Fleur de lys, the third volume in the Feu series, she won the AQPF-ANEL Teachers' Literary Award in the "Novel, 15+ years" category (2008). She also received the Grand Prix de la culture des Laurentides (2008).
