André Lamontagne was born in Québec City and now lives in Vancouver where he is Professor of French and head of the French, Hispanic and Italian Studies Department at the University of British Columbia. As a scholar and creative writer, he is the author of two essays on Quebecois Literature, Les mots des autres (1992) and Le roman québécois contemporain: les voix sous les mots (2004) and of Le tribunal parallèle, a collection of short stories, nominated for the Prix des lecteurs de Radio-Canada 2007 and for the 2008 Prix Emile-Ollivier du Conseil supérieur de la langue française. The Gravediggers, his first novel, originally published in French as Les fossoyeurs, was nominated for the 2010 Prix des lecteurs de Radio-Canada. André Lamontagne is vice-president of the Francophone Historical Society of British Columbia.