PROFILE

In one way, Marguerite Andersen is an adventurer. Born in Germany, she has lived in France, Tunisia, Austria, England, Ethiopia, the United States and in Quebec; she presently lives in Toronto. In another way, she is a rather serious woman: Staatsexamen (Freie Universität Berlin), Ph.D. in French Studies (University of Montreal) and an honorary doctorate (Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax). Plus three children and seven grandchildren!		(click to enlarge) Portrait of Marguerite Andersen
She would have liked to be an actress, but to provide for her needs and those of her children, she became a teacher. This career saw her rise to the rank of full professor and department chair.

During a sabbatical leave, at the age of fifty-four, she wrote a partially autobiographical novel with political and philosophical resonance, De mémoire de femme; the Union of the Québécois writers decided that the book deserved the Prize of the Journal de Montreal. This excellent beginning was followed by the publication of more than ten works of fiction and poetic prose. In 1995, a novel, La Soupe, won the Grand Prize of the Salon du livre de Toronto.

Two collections of short stories, Courts Métrages et Instantanés (1991) and the Les Crus de l'Esplanade (1998), have established Marguerite Andersen a short story writer of renown. Today she directs Virages, a francophone short story quarterly. Neither too adventurous nor a recluse in an ivory tower, Marguerite Andersen is quite simply an active woman.