Lemelin, Roger (1919-92). Canadian novelist and journalist, best known for two colourful and lively chronicles of French-Canadian working-class life: Au pied de la pente douce (1945) and Les Plouffe (1948). The initial impact of these works was magnified by subsequent television serials and film versions, which made the Plouffe family a cultural institution in Quebec. Set in 1936-40, both works show social change weakening the grip of the two great forces of traditional French-Canadian life: the Catholic Church and the family (the latter being symbolized by the redoubtable figure of la mère Plouffe). Pierre le magnifique (1952), loosely linked to the first two novels, and a belated sequel, Le Crime d'Ovide Plouffe (1982), were less successful.

[Ian Lockerbie]

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.