Jean-Aubert Loranger | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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Jean-Aubert Loranger

Jean-Aubert Loranger, poet, storyteller, journalist (b at Montreal 26 Oct 1896; d there 28 Oct 1942). Loranger belonged to a family known for its lawyers (the Lorangers), writers (AUBERT DE GASPÉ) and military officers (Charles de SALABERRY).

Loranger, Jean-Aubert

Jean-Aubert Loranger, poet, storyteller, journalist (b at Montreal 26 Oct 1896; d there 28 Oct 1942). Loranger belonged to a family known for its lawyers (the Lorangers), writers (AUBERT DE GASPÉ) and military officers (Charles de SALABERRY). He excelled at journalism, working for La Patrie 1923-27 and 1939-42, LaPRESSE 1927-30, Le Jour 1938-39 and Montréal-Matin for 6 weeks in 1942.

During WWI he associated with young intellectuals and artists who had lived in Paris (including his cousin, Robert de Roquebrune) and met regularly in the WESTMOUNT drawing room of architect Fernand Préfontaine. In 1918 this group started the first arts magazine in Québec, LeNIGOG, to which Loranger contributed. Admitted to the École littéraire de Montréal on 17 November 1920, he broke definitively with this group, unwilling to participate in activities that fell far short of his own creative ambitions.

His 2 collections, Les Atmosphères (1920) and Poëmes (1922), introduced blank verse to Québec and showed his obsession with modernity and escapism. But peasant life fascinated him and inspired his realistic, yet ironic and amusing, short stories. In 1979 he was posthumously awarded the Prix France-Québec for his 2 volumes of short stories.