Martine Desjardins

Martine Desjardins was born in the Town of Mount Royal, Quebec, in 1957. The second child of six, she started writing short stories when she was seventeen. After receiving a bachelor's degree in Russian and Italian studies at the Universite de Monreal, she went on to complete a master's degree in comparative literature, exploring humour in Dostoevsky's The Devils. She worked as an assistant editor-in-chief at ELLE Quebec magazine for four years before leaving to devote herself to writing. Her first novel, Le cercle de Clara, was published by Lemeac in 1997, and was nominated for both the Prix litteraires du Quebec and the Grand Prix des lectrices de ELLE Quebec in 1998. Talonbooks has published six translations of her more recent novels, including Maleficium, a tour de force short-listed for the 2010 Governor General's Literary Award for French Fiction and Quebec Prix des libraires. In her free time, Desjardins paints miniature models of ruins overgrown with vegetation.