Funeral for Antonine Maillet to be held in Moncton on Saturday

Luke Beirne · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 11, 2025 2:35 PM EDT | Last Updated: 4 minutes ago

A nationalist funeral for renowned Acadian writer Antonine Maillet will beryllium held successful Moncton on Saturday. 

It volition beryllium held astatine 11:00 a.m. at the Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption Cathedral connected St. George Street. Flags volition besides beryllium flown astatine half-mast crossed each three campuses of the Université de Moncton successful her memory. 

Maillet was calved successful Bouctouche successful 1929 and died at her location successful Montreal connected Feb. 17 astatine the property of 95.

She received many literary awards successful her career, including the Governor General's Award for Don l'Orignal, published successful 1968, and the Prix Goncourt successful 1979 for her caller Pélagie-la-Charrette, the archetypal Canadian writer to person the prestigious French literate award.

She wrote 12 plays and 20 novels and was called "the top dependable of Acadia" by New Brunswick Tourism Minister Isabelle Thériault.

 "In everything — successful her books, successful her plays, successful the euphony — she wanted Acadie to radiance and that's really what she accomplished … she allowed Acadie to radiance passim Canada and the world," said Thériault, erstwhile quality of Maillet's decease was announced.

On the time Maillet's decease was announced, Monique Poirier, enforcement and creator manager of Le Pays de la Sagouine, the theatrical colony successful Bouctouche, said, "It's a precise bittersweet day, but we are truthful grateful for everything that she has done."

The colony brings to beingness the characters Maillet created, including her famous La Sagouine. That play was first staged successful 1971 with Viola Leger successful the rubric role

Moncton's yearly literate festival, the Frye Festival, volition honour the precocious novelist and playwright with a peculiar literate amusement connected May 4, to showcase the extent of her writing.

Ariane Savoie, the festival's enforcement director, antecedently said Maillet helped animate the thought to make the festival successful 1999. 

At the time, Maillet was co-organizing a bilingual league successful Moncton with writer John Ralston Saul, Savoie said.

"That thought of the Frye Festival benignant of generated from that lawsuit specifically," she said. "Having a bilingual literate league present successful Moncton brought up the information that Moncton needed these activities."

In 2006, the archetypal Maillet-Frye Lecture took spot astatine the Frye and has since go a staple of the festival.