Martine Desjardins was born in the Town of Mount Royal, Québec, in 1957. The second child of six, she started writing short stories when she was seventeen. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in Russian and Italian studies at the Université de Montréal, she went on to complete a master’s degree in comparative literature, exploring humour in Dostoevsky’s The Devils. She worked as an assistant editor-in-chief at ELLE Québec magazine for four years before leaving to devote herself to writing. Presently she works as a freelance rewriter, translator and journalist for L’actualité, an award-winning French-language current affairs magazine in Canada. Her first novel, Le cercle de Clara, was published by Leméac in 1997, and was nominated for both the Prix littéraires du Québec and the Grand prix des lectrices de ELLE Québec in 1998. Desjardins currently lives in the Town of Mount Royal. In her free time, she paints miniature models of ruins overgrown with vegetation.
Short-listed 2018 Prix des Horizons imaginaires (for imaginative literature from Quebec)
Winner 2017 Prix Jacques-Brossard (for science fiction and fantasy from Quebec)
Long-listed 2017 Prix des libraires du Québec
Winner 2013 Sunburst Award
Winner 2010 Prix Jacques Brossard
Short-listed 2010 Governor General’s Literary Award (French Fiction)
Short-listed 2010 Prix des libraires du Quebec
Short-listed 2010 Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie
Short-listed 2005 Governor General's Literary Award for French Fiction
Winner 2001 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation