One of the most important figures in the history of French Canadian literature, Gabrielle Roy is known primarily for her first novel published in 1945, Bonheur d’occasion, which was translated into English as The Tin Flute and then into at least fifteen other languages.

Roy was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, on March 22, 1909. She was the youngest child of Leon Roy, a French interpreter for the federal government, and Mélina Landry, who had moved to Manitoba from Quebec at the end of the nineteenth century. Roy was never close to her father, who was 62 when she was born. However, as she writes in her two-part autobiography Enchantment and Sorrow (1984), she enjoyed a good relation

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First published 17 November 2003

Citation: Hutchison, Lorna, and Sophie Marcotte. "Gabrielle Roy". The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 November 2003.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5514, accessed 20 November 2009.]