Linda Gaboriau


Linda Gaboriau is a Canadian dramaturg and literary translator who has translated some 125 plays and novels by Quebec writers, including many of the Quebec plays best known to English-speaking audiences.

Background

A native of Boston, she moved to Montreal in 1963 to pursue her studies at McGill University where she obtained a B.A. and M.A. in French language and literature. While a student, she was briefly married to a man whose surname was Gaboriau; although the marriage was short-lived, she kept his surname as her professional pen name.
She has worked as a freelance journalist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Canada and the Montreal Gazette, pursued a career in Canadian and Quebec theatre and, in the 2000s, served as the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.

Work

Her translations have garnered many awards, including three Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Awards for Michel Marc Bouchard's Lilies in 1992, Normand Chaurette's The Queens in 1993 and Bouchard's The Orphan Muses in 1999; the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play in 1991 for Lilies and in 2000 for Michel Tremblay's For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again ; three Governor General's Awards for French to English translation in 1996 for Daniel Danis's Stone and Ashes , in 2010 for Wajdi Mouawad's Forests and in 2019 for Mouawad's Birds of a Kind ; and the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Drama for Bouchard's Tom at the Farm .
She was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2015 and Officer of the Ordre National du Québec in 2023.

Personal life

Gaboriau was previously married to Montreal city councillor Nick Auf der Maur, and is the mother of rock musician Melissa Auf der Maur. She and her late partner of 35 years, author and professor Hervé de Fontenay, have one son, architect Yves de Fontenay.

Works translated

A selected list of Gaboriau's translations includes:
  • 1983 — Saga of the Wet Hens
  • 1987 — Being at Home with Claude
  • 1989 — Warriors
  • 1991 — Lilies
  • 1992 — The Magnificent Voyage of Emily Carr
  • 1993 — The Eye Is an Eagle
  • 1993 — The Orphan Muses
  • 1996 — American Notebooks
  • 1996 — Stone and Ashes
  • 1998 — That Woman
  • 1998 — The Tale of Teeka
  • 1998 — Fragments of a Farewell Letter Read by Geologists
  • 1998 — The Queens
  • 1998 — For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
  • 1999 — The Coronation Voyage
  • 1999 — Song of the Say-Sayer
  • 2000 — Down Dangerous Passes Road
  • 2000 — All the Verdis of Venice
  • 2002 — Impromptu on Nuns' Island
  • 2003 — Scattered in a Rising Wind
  • 2004 — Written on Water
  • 2004 — Past Perfect
  • 2005 — Scorched
  • 2006 — Assorted Candies
  • 2009 — Albertine in Five Times
  • 2010 — Forests
  • 2013 — Heavens
  • 2014 — Christina, The Girl King
  • 2015 — Tom at the Farm
  • 2015 — The Divine, A Play for Sarah Bernhardt
  • 2015 — Yours Forever, Marie-Lou
  • 2017 — Anima
  • 2019 — Birds of a Kind
  • 2019 — Rite of Passage
  • 2022 — Kisses Deep
  • 2022 — ''Twists of Fate''