Anne Hébert was born in 1916 at Ste-Catherine-de-Portneuf which is situated near Lc St. Joseph about 20 miles west of Quebec City. Early influences were extremely important in her development as an imaginative story writer, poet, and playwright. Due to delicate health in childhood she missed the usual school experience, but this was apparently compensated for in other directions by the attentions of her parents and by the acquisition of an inner life of unusual vividness. Her father was the respected critic, Maurice Hébert, and it is noteworthy that her near-contemporary, cousin, and summer neighbour in Portneuf County, Saint-Denys-Garneau, achieved a reputation as a major Canadian poet and essayist before his untimely death in 1943 at the age of 31.
Anne Hébert, who has worked as a script writer for the National Film Board, now writes and lives a great deal of the time in France. She won the GOVERNOR GENERAL’S AWARD in 1960 for her novel Les Chambres de Bois, and the MOLSON PRIZE OF THE CANADA COUNCIL in 1968. In 1970, she received both the PRIX DAVID awarded by the Government of Quebec and the PRIX DES LIBRAIRES DE FRANCE for her novel Kamouraska which was recently made into a feature film under the direction of Claude Jutras.
