SOURCE: "Jacques Ferron: The Marvellous Folly of Writing," in Voices of Deliverance: Interviews with Quebec & Acadian Writers, translated by Larry Shouldice, Anansi, 1986, pp. 83-103.

In the following essay, based on correspondence and an interview, Ferron discusses his British literary influences, symbolism, character, and the place of Quebec history and legend in his works.

Interviewing Jacques Ferron seemed at first to be something of a Mission Impossible. I had been told several times that Ferron almost never granted interviews and that, although he was not a complete recluse like Réjean Ducharme, the good doctor was not very fond of talking about his writing. However, I was not about to let myself become discouraged. I had just spent five years working on a doctoral dissertation dealing with Ferron, and my head was teeming with his work: 16 plays, 12 novels, two collections of short stories, two books of fictionalized biography, two...