Monique Corriveau belonged to the first generation of French-speaking Canadian authors who could write for the young without feeling constrained by the religious and patriotic pieties that had prevailed in Quebec until 1960. Her works won the plaudits of critics and earned the highest distinctions in the field. When she turned to science fiction, she brought to the genre the respectability she had gained as well as her already considerable experience as a writer. Though she died just as French-language science fiction in Canada was gaining critical mass, she proved that science fiction for young readers could be more than fluff, and she left readers an important homegrown dystopia to ponder.

Corriveau was born Monique Chouinardon 6 September 1927 in Quebec City to François-Xavier Chouinard--a practicing lawyer and the town clerk, like his father before him--and Bernadette Chouinard, née Rouillard. Corriveau's early schooling was spent at the...