Brossard, Nicole (b. 1943). Canadian poet and novelist, a leading figure in the Quebec avant-garde. Her poetic work, collected in Le Centre blanc (1978), and her first novels, Sold out (1973) and French Kiss (1974), undertook the subversion of traditional literary forms. In the 1980s a commitment to feminism and lesbianism added a political dimension to the deconstructive project. Amantes and Le Sens apparent (both 1980) assimilate the process of writing to the release of women's sexual desires. Le Désert mauve (1987) makes the same statements but with a greater degree of narrative coherence than hitherto.
— Ian Lockerbie
