Caroline Dawson, a novelist, poet and sociologist who died of bone cancer on May 19 at the age of 44, leaves a legacy as a highly regarded professor and an important new voice in Quebec literature.Archives Cégep Édouard-Monpetit
“I was seven years old the first time I decided not to kill myself,” reads the first sentence in Caroline Dawson’s breakthrough 2020 novel Là où je me terre. The largely autobiographical work recounts the story of an immigrant child who left Chile under a dictatorship and came of age in Montreal. The narrator concludes the first chapter by stating she decided to survive the despair of leaving her home by “embracing existence even if it means having to transform it.”
Ms. Dawson, a novelist, poet and sociologist who died of bone cancer on May 19 at the age of 44, leaves a legacy as a highly regarded professor and an important new voice in Quebec literature. She taught for 15 years in Longueuil, Que., at CEGEP Édouard-Montpetit, and also published a collection of poetry, Ce qui est tu, and the children’s book Partir de loin. The English translation of her novel, which came out in late 2023 with the title As the Andes Disappeared, was shortlisted for this year’s Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
Caroline Dawson was born on Dec. 12, 1979, in Viña del Mar, near Valparaíso, a city on Chile’s Pacific coast. Her family – parents Natalia San Martin and Alfredo Dawson, and their children, Jim, Caroline and Nicholas – landed as refugees in Toronto on Christmas Day in 1986. The plane had been diverted from Montreal because of an ice storm.
Her parents had been teachers in Chile and opposed Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Even though Alfredo spoke English, having taught the language in Chile, the family opted to settle in Quebec because they heard that social services were more generous there.
When the storm cleared they were sent on to Montreal and initially sequestered in a hotel room on a floor set aside to process refugees. They had fled their sunny Chilean home in a popular, hilly neighbourhood with the ocean in the distance below to arrive in a wintry city.
The Dawson family eventually found an apartment in Ahuntsic, a working-class neighbourhood in northern Montreal. That was the first of a number of family moves through tough neighbourhoods in the city. The parents, a middle-class couple in Chile, often worked as office cleaners while struggling to learn French. Ms. Dawson recounted that her mother still found time to take the children to a public library on Saturdays, which was foundational in developing her curiosity and launching her intellectual journey to becoming an influential Quebec writer.
Author and Montreal Gazette columnist Toula Drimonis said that Ms. Dawson’s novel established her in the province’s literary scene, which increasingly features immigrant writers in addition to those born in Quebec.
“One can’t truly understand today’s Quebec without reading immigrant authors like Dawson,” Ms. Drimonis wrote in a recent column.
While Ms. Dawson’s novel conveys in sometimes harrowing detail the trials of adjusting to a new land and language, Ms. Drimonis, who is a Montrealer of Greek heritage, says it does so with empathy.
“It’s more palatable because she whispers what some of us would be shouting” about the economic, cultural and linguistic barriers newcomers face, said Ms. Drimonis, who described the book as “a beautiful love letter to Quebec.”
She says Ms. Dawson’s work is, “representative of a Quebec that is changing. It’s part of the evolution of Quebec and to me that’s beautiful. I encourage people to read it in French. There’s real beauty in her use of the language.”
Although the novel is celebrated by Quebec francophones, Ms. Drimonis notes that it has been read by relatively few anglophones. “Sadly that’s kind of predictable. She’s a big part of Quebec literature, but the ‘two solitudes’ still exist.”
Ms. Dawson navigated her way in a society “surrounded by an ocean of English, that has linguistic insecurity and a fear of disappearing,” Quebec MNA Ruba Ghazal said admiringly. “She’s 100 per cent part of Quebec. Like authors Dany Laferrière and Kim Thúy, she enriched our culture.” Ms. Ghazal, who is of Lebanese-Palestinian origin and also immigrated to Montreal as a child, was moved by Ms. Dawson’s sometimes painful portrayal of the familial tensions experienced by newcomers. Ms. Ghazal said she admires Ms. Dawson’s frankness about the shame that such children can feel about their backgrounds as they struggle to adapt to cultural differences.
Playwright Michel Marc Bouchard discovered Ms. Dawson’s novel when he was asked to appear on Radio-Canada’s Combat national des livres literary contest, the French-language version of Canada Reads. He said the description of the book on a list prepared by the broadcaster made it seem like “an infomercial for Quebec immigration.” When he read the book, however, he had a far more favourable impression.
“It’s going to remain a strong book in our literature,” he said. “It portrays the combat of an immigrant couple to survive, running around Montreal at night doing cleaning jobs while their kids learn French from TV shows and popular music. It’s got drama and it’s got humour. It makes one cry. It became a cri de cœur for me to defend it.”
The novel was made into an audiobook in an elaborate production with many voices including Chilean-Québécoise actor and playwright Kathy-Alexandra Retamal Villegas as the narrator. Ms. Retamal Villegas also played the role in a stage adaptation of the novel at Théâtre La Bordée in Quebec City. Ms. Retamal Villegas, whose parents also worked as cleaners when they arrived in Canada, says she felt honoured to perform the role.
Ms. Dawson “opened a window on the immigrant experience in Quebec,” Ms. Retamal Villegas said. “We are not just statistics. Through her one sees the moms, the daughters, the workers. She conveyed that with rage about social injustice, but also with love. I’ve had confirmation from knowing her work that it is possible to keep both our identities as newcomer and Québécoise while remaining engaged culturally and politically. We can dare to speak up. I find her admirable and inspiring.”
Ms. Dawson’s engagement and intellectual formation was honed in master’s studies in sociology at the University of Montreal. There she met and befriended Valérie Blanc, then a graduate student in history. Both were feminists and involved in various social justice movements. The pair then became colleagues for 14 years at CEGEP Édouard-Montpetit.
“She was very engaged with students as a professor,” Ms. Blanc said. “She had a special concern for the vulnerable ones.” In addition to her teaching, Ms. Dawson organized academic conferences and facilitated international travel opportunities for students. Ms. Blanc says Ms. Dawson’s training in sociology inform her work as a novelist depicting the inequities experienced by immigrants and women. Just before Ms. Dawson’s death, the CEGEP created the Caroline Dawson Commemorative Fund for a female student who is a first-generation immigrant.
Ms. Dawson was diagnosed with cancer in 2021. She was open about her condition in interviews with journalists and on social media.
“At the moment, besides cancer, I feel truly privileged,” she once told La Presse journalist Dominic Tardif. “I feel really lucky.”
Later, in November, 2023, she gave another lengthy recorded interview to Mr. Tardif. Even with her voice weakened by illness, she chuckled frequently during the session. She enjoyed talking about Leonard Cohen, an artist she and her husband admired greatly. Mr. Cohen’s song Show Me The Place was featured at their wedding. At that time, she was still reading voraciously, consuming the complete works of French novelist Honoré de Balzac.
She said that while she loved her job as a sociology professor, she was compelled to write her novel to lift the veil of secrecy that was common in families. She wanted to honour her mother, and also to ensure that her daughter, to whom the book was dedicated, knew the struggles the family had endured and overcome.
As she was interviewed in a hospital bed in the family home, her strength of conviction about social justice remained strong. She said she felt “used” when Quebec Premier François Legault praised her novel on social media. “Did he actually read it?” Ms. Dawson said. “It talks about things that could be improved. He’s not doing it.”
She also expressed dissatisfaction with being labelled an immigrant “success story.” She said her concern was with ordinary people sometimes in bad jobs and struggling to get by. They warrant attention as well, she argued. “Institutions anger me. But people? I love them.”
Ms. Dawson leaves her husband, Jacob Moëll; children, Paul and Bérénice; parents; and brothers, Jim and Nicholas.
Radio-Canada will grant an annual prize in honour of Ms. Dawson to an emerging writer.
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