Jacques Renaud

Renaud, Jacques

Jacques Renaud, novelist, poet (b at Montréal 10 Nov 1943). Associated in the 1960s with the radical journal PARTI PRIS, Renaud also worked as a journalist and television researcher for Radio-Canada. Active in the Réseau de résistance, an underground independentist group that preceded the FRONT DE LIBÉRATION DU QUÉBEC, Renaud is best known as the author of the novella Le Cassé (1964; Broke City, 1984), a violent story replete with fractured and anglicized "joual," considered the best fictional work produced by the publishing house of Parti pris. A 2nd edition of Le Cassé(1977) added several short stories and the "Journal du Cassé," dealing with the impact of and controversies surrounding that publication. En d'autres paysages (1970) is a novel that attempts to wed realism and fantasy, and points to his later interests in esotericism and orientalism, evident in Le Fond pur de l'errance irradie (1975) and Le Cycle du scorpion (1979), La Colombe et la brisue éternité and Clandestine(s) ou la tradition du couchant (1980) - the latter mixing occultism with political violence.