René Lévesque: Charismatic Leader

Terry A. Crowley is a professor of history at the University of Guelph,
and the former editor of the journal, Ontario History. He is the author
of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality and Canadian History to
1967, and the co-author of The College o

This short biography of former Quebec broadcaster and Premier René
Lévesque by radio broadcaster Marguerite Paulin is an unfortunate
choice for translation and publication. Adolescent readers are unlikely
to be able to identify with the rapid-fire episodic snapshots that
Paulin has chosen as her approach. Many Québécois/es are likely to be
able to contextualize the perpetual vignettes that constitute the
French-language book, but anglophone readers will simply be confused.
Jonathan Kapansky’s translation is readable, but the wisdom of the
subtitle, Charismatic Leader, is questionable for an English-speaking
audience. In French the subtitle was the more modest One Life, One
Nation, but René Lévesque: Challenge to Canada might have been a more
inspired choice in English. We need to know more about René Lévesque
and his great protagonist Pierre Elliott Trudeau, but young adults would
do better to begin with Donald Brittain’s brilliant 1978 National Film
Board video recording The Champions. Not a first-choice purchase.