Louis Hémon (1880-1913) was a French novelist best known for his "Maria Chapdelaine," in which the pioneering regions of Quebec are so vividly presented that the work long overshadowed novels by native Canadians.

Born in Brest, Louis Hémon was educated in Paris, where his father was an inspector general in the education ministry. Hémon qualified for the colonial service but decided not to become a civil servant. Instead, he traveled in England, working occasionally as a commercial traveler. He developed an interest in various sports and wrote for sporting journals. In these he also published his first stories, mostly based on his observations in England. Little is known about his personal life except that he had a daughter in 1909.

In 1911 Hémon arrived in Canada, spending his first winter in Montreal. Then he set out for Lake St. John, where he...