Monique Bosco (1927–2007)

Monique Bosco was born to a Jewish family in Vienna, Austria, and spent her childhood in France, where she survived World War II. In 1948, she emigrated to Canada, settling in Montréal, and obtained a doctoral degree from the Université de Montréal with a thesis on the theme of isolation in the French-Canadian novel. She worked for many years as a freelance journalist for Canada's French-language public broadcasting network, newspapers, and magazines, and was a researcher for the National Film Board of Canada. In 1963, she joined the faculty of the French Studies Department of the Université de Montréal. Her first novel, Un amour maladroit, published in 1961, won the First Novel Award in the USA. It was followed by about a dozen other novels, including La femme de Loth (1971), which won the Governor General's Award in Canada and was translated into English as Lot's Wife. She also produced four collections of short stories and books of poetry. Many of her works concern the uprooting of immigrants and feminine isolation. She was awarded the Prix Athanase-David in 1996 for her lifetime body of work.