Born Iraqi Jewish, Naïm Kattan is more than “just” a Quebecois or a Franco-Ontarian writer: Officer of the Order of Canada (1983) and Knight of the National Order of Quebec (1990), he devoted his whole life to promoting French language and multicultural dialogue throughout the world. Having to flee his home country in the 1940s, he studied French literature at the Sorbonne in Paris and moved to Quebec in 1954. Since 1967, Kattan divides his time between his beloved Montreal, the city that welcomed him when he arrived in Canada, and Ontario, where he directed the Writing and Publishing Section of the Canada Council for the Arts for over a quarter of a century. Kattan’s trajectory is a loaded one. He is mostly a mediator between cultures, a “passeur culturel” (Giguère, 2001).…
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Citation: Mouneimné Van Roeyen, Tina. "Naïm Kattan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 February 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13742, accessed 24 November 2024.]
