Michel Tremblay is a French-Canadian playwright and novelist. He is primarily known for his work depicting the lives of everyday Quebecois characters and capturing regional cadences of speech.
Born in Montreal, Quebec, Tremblay grew up in the blue-collar neighborhood of Plateau Mont-Royal. Here, he was immersed in the French dialect called joual, which went on to play a prominent role in almost all of his works. Les Belles-Soeurs was Tremblay's first play to be produced professionally. Written in 1965, the play premiered in 1968 and made major shockwaves in the Canadian theater world. With its unvarnished portrait of the lives of working-class class women, it generated a great deal of debate and consternation. It sharply critiqued the morality of the devoutly religious community as both rigid and narrow-minded. His other major works include the play Hosanna (1973) and the novels The Fat Woman Next Door is Pregnant (1978) and Thérèse and Pierrette and the Little Hanging Angel (1980). Tremblay has received numerous awards for his work, including the Molson Prize (1994), the Prix France-Québec (1984), and the Chalmers Award (1986).
Les Belles-Soeurs is a two-act play by Canadian writer Michael Tremblay. Written in a naturalistic style, the story follows one night in the home of Germaine Lauzon, a housewife who is hosting a small get-together. The course of the evening...
