Background
Bessette grew up in Montreal and attended the Collège Saint-Ignace.
literary critic university professor writer
Bessette grew up in Montreal and attended the Collège Saint-Ignace.
He continued his studies at the Université de Montréal, where in 1950 he completed his doctorate entitled Images in French-Canadian poetry.
He then found a job in Kingston, Ontario, first at Royal Military College of Canada in 1958, and then in the Department of French Studies at Queen"s University from 1959 to 1979. His earlier works are written in a realistic style, while his later novels utilize elements of the nouveau roman literary movement and tend to be more experimental. His literary criticism is noted for its Freudian readings of Québécois literature.
One of his most noted works is Le libraire (1960), an existential tale of a book store employee in a small Quebec town in the 1950s.
The book deals with one of Bessette"s most common themes: the stifling culture of Quebec of that time.
(Roman Canadien. Collection LITTERATURE D'AMERIQUE dirigee...)