b. April 7, 1919, Quebec City, Quebec; d. March 16, 1992, Quebec City, Quebec

Born and raised in the working-class St-Sauveur district of Quebec City, the self-taught Roger Lemelin discovered his vocation as a writer when a skiing accident left him disabled for several years as a teenager. His first novel, Au pied de la pente douce, was published in 1944 and generated intense debate for its espousal of urban values at a time when Quebec was very much a rural society buttressed by traditional Catholic values. A pioneer of social realism in Quebec literature, his keen observational style made targets of the clergy, nationalism, the conventional Quebec family and sexual taboos.

He went on to become a journalist and from 1944 to 1952 contributed to several magazines, including as a Canadian correspondent to Time and Life. A Guggenheim Fellowship allowed him to write his next novel, Les Plouffe, which was published in 1948 and became a tremendous popular success. The book, about a prototypical Quebec family dealing with life during the Depression and the Second World War, was adapted into a radio show and then a popular television series, which ran on Radio-Canada from 1953 to 1959 (it was also dubbed into English as “The Plouffe Family” on the CBC). In 1981, the second of Lemelin’s three books on the Plouffe family was adapted into a feature film and mini-series by director Gilles Carle. The most expensive Canadian production up to that time (its budget was $5 million), Les Plouffe went on to win seven Genie Awards, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Lemelin.

In the sixties and seventies, Lemelin ventured into the realm of business and made several profitable investments in advertising, food processing and lumbering. He also served as the CEO and editor of the Montreal daily La Presse from 1972 to 1981. He was named a Companion to the Order of Canada in 1980, an honourary member of the Union des écrivains québécois in 1987 and a Chevalier in the French Legion d’honneur in 1990.