In 1945 novelist Gabrielle Roy helped create a new direction for francophone literature in Canada with Bonheur d'occasion (translated as The Tin Flute, 1947), a frank and uncompromising examination of urban misery. Her subsequent works of fiction are characterized by simplicity, compassion, a bittersweet tone, and a concentration on those Roy called "the gentle people." The muted delicacy of her work suggests the water-color, to use Gérard Tougas's image; at the same time her themes are substantial, exploring one's place in the human family, in the natural world, and in relation to oneself.

In an interview with Donald Cameron (published in his Conversations with Canadian Novelists, 1973), Roy said, "I have no sooner seen the splendour of life than I feel obliged, physically obliged, to look down and also take notice of the sad and of the tragic in life." The same duality is revealed in another of her...