Maillet, Antonine

Antonine Maillet, CP, CC, OQ, is a novelist, playwright and translator who has published more than 50 works earning her several esteemed prizes. Her character La Sagouine, established her reputation among Canadian francophones until she won the prix Goncourt in 1979 for Pélagie-la-Charrette. She then became a celebrity throughout the international francophonie. It is because of Antonine Maillet that Acadia entered, for the first time, the realm of written literature. Before her, Acadian fiction existed only in oral tradition.