Paul Toupin (December 7, 1918 – March 8, 1993) was a Quebec journalist, essayist and playwright.

Early life and education

Born in Montreal on December 7, 1918, he studied at Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, the Sorbonne, Columbia University and Aix-Marseille University.

Paul Toupin

Career

In addition to his writing and journalism, he taught at the Université de Sherbrooke and Loyola University.

Paul Toupin

His plays included Le Choix (1951), Brutus (1952), Le Mensonge (1960), Chacun son amour (1961) and Son dernier rôle (1979). Alongside poet Paul Chamberland and novelist Jean-Paul Pinsonneault, he was one of the first prominent openly gay writers in Quebec literature, addressing gay themes in his 1964 essay collection L'Écrivain et son théâtre and writing more openly about his own sexuality in his memoirs Mon mal vient de plus loin (1969) and Le cœur a ses raisons (1971).

Paul Toupin

He won Quebec's Prix David in 1952 for Brutus, and the Governor General's Award for French-language non-fiction at the 1960 Governor General's Awards for Souvenirs pour demain.

Personal life

He died in Montreal on March 8, 1993. The Paul Toupin Archives are kept in the Montreal archives center of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

Honors

1950 : Prix David

1952 : Prix de littérature de la province de Québec

1960 : Governor General's Award for French-language non-fiction

Member of the Académie des lettres du Québec

References

1918 births

1993 deaths

20th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights

Writers from Montreal

Canadian male dramatists and playwrights

Canadian gay writers

Governor General's Award-winning non-fiction writers

Canadian dramatists and playwrights in French

Canadian non-fiction writers in French

20th-century Canadian male writers

Canadian LGBT dramatists and playwrights

Gay memoirists

Canadian male essayists

20th-century Canadian essayists

20th-century Canadian memoirists

20th-century Canadian LGBT people

Gay dramatists and playwrights