Mona Guérin (October 9, 1934 – December 30, 2011) was a

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

an educator and writer.

Life

The daughter of Gontran Rouzier and Camille Duplessy, she was born Mona Rouzier in

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

. She studied with the Sœurs de Saint-Joseph de Cluny and at the Pensionnat Sainte-Rose de Lima in Port-au-Prince. She received a bursary from the

Canada Arts Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal in ...

which allowed her to study contemporary literature at Saint Paul University in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

. On her return to Haiti, she married Joseph Guérin, an engineer; the couple had two daughters. She taught school from 1965 to 1980. From 1961 to 1965, she wrote a weekly column for '' Le Nouvelliste''. Guérin also wrote scripts for the television series ''Gala de Galerie'' which appeared on Télé-Haïti from 1977 to 1981 and for the radio series ''Roye ! Les Voilà'' which was broadcast from 1982 to 1994. She was host of the radio program ''Dieu à tout moment'' (1992-1994) and also wrote about sixty episodes for the radio series ''Petit théâtre de Magik-Stéréo''. In 1983, she was named a Chevalier in the French

Ordre des Palmes Académiques A suite, in Western classical music and jazz, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with ...

. Guérin died in

at the age of 77 after contracting

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

Selected works

Theatre

* ''’Oiseau de ces dames'' (1966) * ''Les Cinq Chéris'' (1969) * ''La Pieuvre'' (1971) * ''Chambre 26'' (1973) * ''Sylvia'' (1974) * ''La Pension Vacher'' (1976)

Other works

* ''Sur les vieux thèmes'', poetry (1958) * ''Mi-figue, mi-raisin'', stories (1998), received the

Prix littéraire des Caraïbes The Prix littéraire des Caraïbes (''Caribbean Literary Prize'') is a French literary award which was created in 1964 by l’Association des Écrivains de langue française (Association of French language writers). The award honors a writer from ...

from the

References

1934 births 2011 deaths Haitian women dramatists and playwrights Haitian women poets Haitian screenwriters Haitian journalists Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques People from Port-au-Prince 20th-century Haitian poets 20th-century Haitian dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Haitian women writers {{Haiti-writer-stub