The work of André Brochu as poet, novelist, and critic is notable for the energy and erudition it brings to the exploration of a single theme, the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant elements in life and art. Taking much of its inspiration from nineteenth-century Hegelians and contemporary structuralists, Brochu's advocacy of a revolutionary, synthetic vision has found an attentive public among Quebec intellectuals, for whom the questions of separation and unity are central in philosophy, politics, and literature. It is as a dialectician of conflict and coincidence that Brochu has made a significant mark in the cultural life of post-1960 Quebec.

Born in St. Eustache, Quebec, to Edouard and Jeanne Lacroix Brochu, André Brochu began his life as a writer in early adolescence. He was fifteen when several of his poems appeared in the volume Etranges domaines (1957), next to offerings by J.-André...