Gabrielle Roy (1909–1983)
Author of The Tin Flute
About the Author
Gabrielle Roy was born on March 22, 1909 in St. Boniface, Manitoba, Canada. She attended the Winnipeg Normal Institute, where she earned top honors in both her English and French classes. After she completed her schooling, she spent a month teaching in the summer before accepting a job at a school show more for a year. In 1930, after that first year of teaching, she was offered a permanent position in St. Boniface. Roy decided that she wanted to go to Europe for a year with the meagre savings she had managed to accumulate throughout her seven years teaching in St. Boniface. When asked, she would tell people that she was going to France and England to study Drama. She had been a member of a drama troupe, Le Cercle Molière, throughout her teaching years. Once there, she took a teaching post in the summer of 1937 to gain enough to survive in Europe. She had planned to only stay a year, but that turned into two, and would have been longer if not for the outbreak of World War II. It was here that Roy began to write, and published a few articles in a French journal. Roy returned to Canada and made her home in Montreal where for six years she earned a living as a freelance reporter. Her first novel, Bonheur d'Occasion started out as a newspaper article and turned into a novel over 800 pages long. It was published in 1945. In 1947, she won the Prix Fémina from France for Bonheur d'Occasion, and the Governor General's award for the English translation, The Tin Flute. She returned to France, to the place that had originally inspired her writing and in 1950 published La Petite Poule d'Eau (Where Nests the Water Hen), after her return to Canada. 1957 also brought Roy her second Governor General's award, this time for the English translation of Rue Deschambault (Street of Riches), a novel she published in 1955. For the next several years, Roy received many awards as well as critical success, but it was not until 1978 that she won her third and final Governor General's award for Ces Enfants de Ma Vie (Children of My Heart). This was her final novel, although a compilation of some of her work as a journalist, and several children's books followed this last book. Roy's autobiography La Détresse et l'Enchantement (Enchantment and Sorrow) was not published until 1984, a year after her death. Gabrielle Roy died on July 13, 1983 of heart failure. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Bank of Canada
Works by Gabrielle Roy
Bonheur d’occasion, Tome 2 3 copies
Pět kanadských novel : (Québec) 3 copies
Terre des Hommes = Man and his World 3 copies
Luzina Takes A Holiday 2 copies
Associated Works
Cavalcade of the North: An Entertaining Collection of Distinguished Writing by Canadian Authors (1958) — Contributor — 68 copies
In Her Own Words: Women's Memoirs from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States (1999) — Contributor — 26 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Roy, Gabrielle
- Legal name
- Charbotte, Gabrielle Roy (married)
- Birthdate
- 1909-03-22
- Date of death
- 1983-07-13
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Canada
- Country (for map)
- Canada
- Birthplace
- Saint Boniface, Manitoba, Canada
- Place of death
- Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
- Places of residence
- Saint Boniface, Manitoba, Canada
Quebec, Canada - Education
- Saint Joseph's Academy
Winnipeg Normal School - Occupations
- school teacher
novelist
short-story writer
freelance reporter - Awards and honors
- Lorne Pierce Medal (1948)
Order of Canada (Companion ∙ 1967)
Molson Prize (1977)
Prix Athanase-David (1971)
Members
Discussions
Group Read, February 2023: The Tin Flute in 1001 Books to read before you die (March 2023)
Reviews
2 
SassyLassy | 12 other reviews | Jan 12, 2024 |
SassyLassy | 12 other reviews | Jan 12, 2024 | 
I have decided I don't like her writing. the stories aren't realistic, the people are boring. at least they are short.
A marvellous book. The realistic story, which deals with the struggles of a poor family in Montreal during the Second World War, is strong and compelling. The characters are interesting, too, and the author’s description of their inner lives, their hopes and fears, is sublime. Her sophisticated use of vivid detail really made me feel like I was living in the Montreal of the 1940s. This is a classic novel that should be taught in Canadian schools.
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Awards
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Statistics
- Works
- 30
- Also by
- 8
- Members
- 1,808
- Popularity
- #14,230
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 54
- ISBNs
- 138
- Languages
- 2
- Favorited
- 7
World War II began to change the status quo. This is where Roy's novel begins. Set in Saint Henri, among the tanneries, factories, and railways of one of Montréal's worst slums, it tells the story of the LaCasse family, a not untypical family for the time. Florentine, the eldest child at nineteen, worked at a lunch counter at a five and dime store. She was determined she would never lead the life her mother had. Rose-Anna, her mother, was pregnant with her twelfth child. Azarius, her father, was about to be fired from his current job as a taxi driver. Although full of ideas and schemes, he was never able to get anything off the ground, pulling his family further and further into poverty.
May 1, the traditional moving day in Montréal was approaching quickly , and cheaper accommodation had to be found for the family. Each year's move was to smaller and dingier quarters despite the increase in family size. Although Rose-Anna subscribed to the idea that her children should go to school, it was not always possible. While the older ones had completed an expected number of grades, the younger ones often couldn't attend school due to illness, or lack of basics such as waterproof shoes in which to get there.
The war had brought new demands for labour, new opportunities, but also new demands for housing and higher prices. The family was surviving on Florentine's wages, so her brother made the decision to enlist for the monthly stipend it would bring. The war was a matter of contention in their community, however. Presented by the authorities as a war for the King and the British Empire, it had little relevance for a population which still identified with France, even almost two hundred years after the conquest. The fallout from the Conscription Crisis of 1917 still lingered in people's minds, and they were not eager to help out.
Some, however, saw opportunity on the domestic front in the war. Such a one was Jean Lévesque. Florentine naively envisioned herself in love with Jean, who saw her as just another conquest, while at the same time being inexplicably drawn to her. He had to reject her. Emmanuel Létourneau, his old friend, did fall in love with Florentine, who in turn spurned him until she needed him.
This is a surprising book for the time in its frankness. A first novel, it became a classic in French speaking Canada, and on translation into English, a pan Canadian classic. It is now a Penguin Modern Classic. Roy won the Governor - General's Award with it, but as an indication of just one thing wrong with the two solitudes, she did not win it until it had been translated into English. At the time of its publication there was no award for fiction in French. She won again in translation in 1957. An award for French fiction was first given out in 1959, and she won again, in French in 1977. She has also won France's Prix Femina, and Québec's Prix David.… (more)