Background

Normand Chaurette was born on July 9, 1954, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is the son of Gilles and Marcelle (Perreault) Chaurette.

Education

Chaurette holds a bachelor's degree in literature from the University of Montreal.

Career

Chaurette started his career teaching linguistics, transformational grammar and French at a reception centre for Asian refugees, a centre he founded himself.

From 1979 to 1983, Chaurette freelanced, writing several short stories, prefaces, translations and criticism. During that time, he wrote his first play, completed when he was 19, called Rêve d'une nuit d'hôpital and his, probably, most memorable work to date, Provincetown Playhouse, juillet 1919, j'avais 19 ans.

From 1984 to 1988, Chaurette was an editor at the Quebec publisher (notably of plays) Leméac, and since 1988, he has devoted himself exclusively to dramaturgy, and currently works as a playwright in Quebec, Canada. During his career, he wrote more than fifteen plays, including his most recent Ce qui meurt en dernier of 2011.

Alongside his activities of playwright, Chaurette signed the translation of a number of plays into French, including Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart, Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and works by Shakespeare. Chaurette is also a novelist and author of non-fictions.

Achievements

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  French-speaking playwright Normand Chaurette is the author of dramas noted for their surrealism, their themes of passion and death, and their almost complete dissociation from politics or current events. His most famous works include such plays as Provincetown Playhouse, Le Passage de l'Indiana, Les reines, Le Petit Köchel, Ce qui meurt en dernier and Fragments d'une lettre d'adieu lus par des géologues.
  
  His 1991 play Les reines became the first theatre piece by a Quebec writer to be staged at the Comédie-Française and his work, Fragments d'une lettre d'adieu lus par des géologues was nominated for the Governor General's Award for French-language drama in 1986.
  
  Chaurette is also known as the author of one novel, Scènes d'enfants of 1988, which was nominated for the Governor General's Award for French-language fiction the same year, and one non-fiction, Comment tuer Shakespeare of 2011.
  
  Chaurette's translation of Romeo and Juliet was directed by Yves Desgagné as the 2006 film Roméo et Juliette.
  
  Chaurette was also named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2004.

Works

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  • Rêve d'une nuit d'hôpital

    (French Edition)

    1980
  • Le passage de l'Indiana

    (French Edition)

    1996
  • Comment tuer Shakespeare

    (French Edition)

    2012
  • Petit Navire

    (French Edition)

    2006
  • Fragments d'une lettre d'adieu lus par des géologues

    (French Edition)

    1986
  • The Queens 1998
  • All the Verdis of Venice 2000
  • Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists 1998
  • Stabat Mater II 2000

Views

Chaurette believes that "Language is a material. An alexandrine, a verse of 12 feet, is like a 12-foot wooden beam. Everybody says that my work is poetic, musical. But it is also very physical."

Membership

Chaurette is a member of the Union des écrivains québécois and Centre des Auteurs dramatiques.