Robert Melançon was born in Montreal on 12 May 1947. His father, Horace Melançon, was a notary; his mother, Madeleine Beaulieu Melançon, raised seven children of whom Robert was the sixth. He was educated at local schools and did his undergraduate work in the French department at the Université de Montréal where he began his career as a published writer with some translations of poems by Earle Birney and articles. In September 1969 he married Charlotte Côté and the couple went to France where they studied literature at the Université François Rabelais in Tours. Melançon received his M.A. in 1970 and his doctorate in 1972 for a thesis on French baroque poetry. On his return to Canada he joined the French department at the Université de Montréal where he has taught since...