Anne Hébert was born on August 1, 1916, in Sainte-Catherine-de-Fossambault, Quebec. Suffering from a childhood illness, she was schooled at home in her early years. She had the influence of several fine literary minds as she was growing up. Her father, Maurice-Lang Hébert, was a distinguished literary critic, and several of his friends were well-respected intellectuals in Quebec. Her cousin was the poet Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, a man who remained in self-imposed isolation until his death. Hébert also attempted the renunciation of worldly pleasures, having been raised a strict Roman Catholic and seeing herself as having a spiritual and poetic obligation.

From this state of spiritual struggle, she produced her first two works. The first, Les Songes en equilibre (1942), or Dreams in Equilibrium, is the poetic account of a young woman growing from a happy childhood to a life of spiritual...