The Frye Festival

The Frye Festival, formerly known as the Northrop Frye International Literary Festival, is a bilingual (French and English) literary festival held in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada in April of each year. The Festival began in 2000 and is the only festival in the world to honour noted literary critic Herman Northrop Frye (1912–1991) who spent his formative years in Moncton, graduating from Aberdeen High School.

Invited participants of the Frye Festival include not only noted Frye scholars, such as Robert D. Denham, Alvin Lee, Michael Dolzani, Jean O'Grady, and Caterina Nella Cotrupi, but also top literary talent from around the world, as well as regional talent. Russell Banks, Marie-Claire Blais, Neil Bissoondath, Robert Bly, Patrick Chamoiseau, Catherine Cusset, John Dufresne, Richard Ford, Nikki Gemmell, Douglas Glover, Ursula Hegi, Nancy Huston, Witi Ihimaera, Dennis Lee, Alberto Manguel, Yann Martel, Nino Ricci, David Adams Richards, and Bernhard Schlink are among the authors to have appeared during the Festival.

The Frye Symposium Lecture and The Antonine Maillet - Northrop Frye Lecture

Two separate series of lectures take place during the Frye Festival. The Antonine Maillet - Northrop Frye Lecture began in 2006 with Neil Bissoondath, and has since been followed by David Adams Richards in 2007 and Alberto Manguel in 2008, Monique LaRue in 2009 and Noah Richler in 2010 and Margaret Atwood in 2011.

The Frye Symposium Lecture began during the first Festival and continues today. In 2000 David Staines delivered the lecture, followed by Branko Gorjup in 2001, Caterina Nella Cotrupi in 2002. In 2003 there were two Frye Symposium Lectures, one in English by Robert Denham and one in French by Naim Kattan. In 2004 there were also two lectures, both in English, one by John Ayre and one by Michael Dolzani. In 2005 there were two lectures, one by Alvin Lee and one by B. W. Powe. In 2006, the first year of the Maillet-Frye series, there was no Frye Symposium Lecture, but the lecture returned in 2007 when there were again two Frye Symposium Lectures, one by Jean O'Grady and one by Robert Denham. In 2008 there was one lecture, by Glenna Sloan.

The two lecture series are quite separate, with one featuring a well-known writer/thinker, and the other featuring a noted Frye scholar.

A brief history of the Frye Festival

Northrop Frye's presence has always been felt in Moncton. Whether it was as a young boy, riding along the streets of Moncton on his bicycle, or upon his last visit to Moncton when many people came to hear him speak, he has left an indelible mark on the city.

In November 1990, at the invitation of Professor Serge Morin, Northrop Frye returned to Moncton to deliver the Pascal Poirier Lecture at the Université de Moncton. During his stay he had the chance to meet and talk with many Monctonians, and he was able to visit his old home and the grave of his mother in Elmwood Cemetery. 'They were two of the best days of my life,' he reported to fellow Monctonian, Reuben Cohen. The following year, after Frye's death in January 1991, The Northrop Frye Society hosted a gathering of Frye-ites, and John Ayre, Frye's biographer, delivered the Pascal Poirier Lecture.

In 1997 the City of Moncton, under the chairmanship of Paulette Theriault, developed an Arts Policy. As part of this policy it was recommended that the city have a festival to honour Northrop Frye. But it wasn't until December 1998, during the production of a Vision TV documentary in Moncton, that the real seeds of today's Frye Festival were sown.

During this television production entitled "Voices of Vision", John Ralston Saul and Antonine Maillet engaged in a one-hour dialogue about creativity, in both official languages. For festival visionary and founder, Paulette Thériault, more than any other event, this event filmed at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre sparked her imagination and made her believe that a bilingual literary festival, celebrating a great man, a vibrant cultural community and highlighting Atlantic and Acadian authors, was a possibility.

In its first year more than 3,000 people attended the Festival. In 2011 more than 15,000 people attended. The Frye Festival has become one of the major literary events in Canada, and continues to grow every year. More than 350 award-winning authors, from every continent and recipients of almost every major international literary prize, have now attended the Festival. The Festival is the proud recipient of the 2005 Lieutenant-Governor’s Dialogue Award, the 2007 Éloize for Event of the Year and the 2009 TD Canada Trust Arts Organization of the Year by the New Brunswick Foundation for the Arts.

The Frye Festival is Canada's only bilingual, international literary festival, the largest literary happening in Atlantic Canada and is the only festival in the world to honour Northrop Frye.

Participating authors

The complete list of participating authors as of 2016:

José Acquelin

Emmanuel Adely

Frank Adriano

Christine Adjahi

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm

Tammy Armstrong

Marc Arseneau

Mathieu Arsenault

Guy Arsenault

Margaret Atwood

Donna Augustine

John Ayre

Joséphine Bacon

Ian Balfour

Russell Banks

Francois Barcelo

Jean Barbe

Olivier Barrot

Brian Bartlett

Jean-Claude Bauer

Nancy Bauer

Marie-Noëlle Bayle

Gwen Bear

Shirley Bear

Alain Beaulieu

Jimmy Beaulieu

Jean-François Beauchemin

Deni Y. Béchard

Andrea Beck

Carolyn Beck

Helaine Becker

Peter Behrens

Gerard Beirne

Chedly Belkhodja

Alain M. Bergeron

Jacob Berkowitz

Sophie Bérubé

Guillaume Berwald

Sophie Bienvenu

Joe Blades

Paul Bossé

Sophie Boucher

Simon Boulerice

Claudine Bourbonnais

Édith Bourget

Huguette Bourgeois

Denise Brassard

Catherine Briat

Fanny Britt

Yvon Brochu

Ian Brown

Heather Browne Prince

Christian Brun

Régis Brun

Michelle Butler Hallett

Laura Byrne Paquet

Marie Cadieux

Jonathan Campbell

Katia Canciani

Reynald Cantin

Arnaud Cathrine

France Cayouette

Éric Charlebois

Herménégilde Chiasson

George Elliott Clarke

Deborah J. Clifton

Lynn Coady

Fred Cogswell

Nancy Cohen

Fredric Gary Comeau

Germaine Comeau

Marie-France Comeau

Anne Compton

Christy Ann Conlin

Karen Connelly

Geoffrey Cook

Greg Cook

Allan Cooper

Kelly Cooper

Ann Copeland

Mary Costello

Éric Cormier

Caterina Nella Cotrupi

Beppi Crosariol

Phillip Crymble

Wayne Curtis

Catherine Cusset

Nicole Daigle

Lynn Davies

Jean-Christophe Delmeule

Robert Denham

Louise Desjardins

Thierry Desjardins

Rose Després

Hélène Destrempes

Nicolas Dickner

Sarah-Jane Doiron

Richard Doiron

Michael Dolzani

Emma Donoghue

Jeffery Donaldson

Stewart Donovan

Hélène Dorion

Ann Dowsett Johnston

John Doyle

Sylvie Drapeau

Véronique Drouin

Jean-Pierre Dubé

Alain Dubos

Christiane Duchesne

John Dufresne

Rhéa Dufresne

Daniel Dugas

Marianne Dumas

Éric Dupont

Christine Eddie

Jo-Anne Elder

Elin Elgaard

Françoise Enguehard

Endre Farkas

Nadine Fidji

Louise Fiset

Sheree Fitch

Évelyne Foëx

Charles Foran

Michèle Forbes

Richard Ford

Léonard Forest

Jean Fugère

Caroline Fullerton

Madeleine Gagnon

Arianne Gagnon-Roy

Mathieu Gallant

Melvin Gallant

Steven Galloway

Philippe Garon

Maurizio Gatti

Sharon Gibson Palermo

Mylène Gilbert-Dumas

Glen Robert Gill

David Gilmour

Rachna (Mara) Gilmore

Charlotte Gingras

Brigitte Giraud

Douglas Glover

Carlos Gomes

Lian Goodall

Branko Gorjup

Gilles Gougeon

Sue Goyette

Wayne Grady

Shauntay Grant

François Gravel

Joyce Hackett

Judith Hamel

Doug Harris

Brigitte Harrison

Michael Happy

Laïla Héloua

Rainer Hempel

Matthew Henderson

Miranda Hill

David Homel

Laurence Hutchman

Patrick Isabelle

Abria Iwasutiak

D.D. Jackson

Martine L. Jacquot

Kirby Jambon

Alexandre Jardin

Heidi Jardine Stoddart

Alain Jaubert

MC June

Monique Juteau

Jonathan Kaplansky

Natasha Kanapé-Fontaine

Naïm Kattan

Jamie Kennedy

Yasmina Khadra

Ross King

Wendy Kitts

Debra Komar

Ulysse Landry

Krista Lane

M. Travis Lane

Patrick Lane

Carole Langille

Dominic Langlois

Sophie Langlois

Monique LaRue

Martine Latulippe

Charles Leblanc

Daniel Omer LeBlanc

Georgette LeBlanc

Gérald Leblanc

Raymond Guy LeBlanc

Emerise LeBlanc-Nowlan

Claude LeBouthillier

Sandra LeCouteur

Daniel Léger

Diane Carmel Léger

Dyane Léger

Ronald Léger

André Lemelen

Richard Lemm

Marilyn Lerch

Catherine Leroux

Gilles Leroy

J. Roger Léveillé

Mireille Levert

Susanna Licheri

Christopher Lirette

Troy Little

Lesley Livingston

Douglas Lochhead

David Lonergan

Larry Lynch

Annabel Lyon

Alain Mabanckou

Kathy Mac

Anne Louise MacDonald

Anne-Marie MacDonald

David Macfarlane

Linden MacIntyre

John MacKenzie

Brent MacLaine

Alexander MacLeod

Alistair MacLeod

Sue MacLeod

Matthew Magee

Antonine Maillet

Marguerite Maillet

Kevin Major

Sonya Malaborza

Jocelyne Mallet-Parent

Eduardo Manet

Alberto Manguel

Roberto Mann

Guy Marchamps

Véronique Marcotte

Michèle Marineau

Paul Marion

Lindsay Marshall

Catherine Anne Martin

Raymond Martin

Sandra Martin

Monia Mazigh

Sharon McCartney

Elaine McCluskey

Jennifer McGrath Kent

Ami McKay

Don McKay

Darrah McKeon

Phyllis McKinley

Catherine McKinnon

Wesley McNair

Janet McNaughton

Zakes Mda

John Meagher

Johanne Mercier

Rita Mestokosho

Sean Michaels

Annie Michaud

Mildred Milliea

Allison Mitcham

Cindy Morais

Wendy Morton

André Muise

Jenny Munday

Cathy Brown Murphy

George Murray

Glenn Murray

Riel Nason

Derlemari Nébardoum

Gitpu Nevin

Glen Nichols

Hope Nicholson

Lorette Nobécourt

Michel Noël

Jean O'Grady

Ruth Ohi

Albert Ostermaier

Michèle Ouimet

Ann-Maureen Owens

Lucy Papineau

Denise Paquette

Daniel Paul

Kathleen Peacock

Stanley Péan

Randy Pealstein

Harvey Pekar

Charles Pelletier

Maryse Pelletier

Pierre Raphaël Pelletier

Bryan Perro

Emily Pohl-Weary

Marc Joseph Edgar Poirier

Simone Poirier-Bures

Daniel Poliquin

Sharon Pollock

Andrée Poulin

B. W. Powe

Beth Powning

Bernard Pozier

Marc Prescott

Monique Proulx

Stefan Psenak

Theresia Quigley

Michel Rabagliati

Jean-Philippe Raîche

Alain Raimbault

Jacques Rancourt

Robert Rayner

Kathy Reichs

Alice Anna Reese

Nino Ricci

Nancy Wilcox Richards

Sylvie Roberge

Gabriel Robichaud

Eden Robinson

Matt Robinson

Rino Morin Rossignol

Paul Roux

Maryse Rouy

Albert Roy

André Roy

Camilien Roy

Christian Roy

Phillip Roy

Jean-Christophe Rufin

Rodney Saint-Éloi

Peter Sanger

Jocelyne Saucier

John Ralston Saul

Michel Savard

Jacques Savoie

Paul Savoie

Roméo Savoie

Gilbert Sewell

Yves Sioui-Durand

Glenna Sloan

Alison Smith

Michael Smith

Neil Smith

Russell Smith

Thomas R. Smith

Serena Sock

Norbert Spitz

Anthony A.C. Staples

Andrew Steeves

Mike Steeves

Fred Stenson

Craig Stephenson

Geronimo Stilton

Kay Stone

Christiane St-Pierre

Allan Stratton

Alan Syliboy

Jessica Tang

Jeremy Tankard

Ghislain Taschereau

Michel Tétu

Catherine Texier

Mario Thériault

Serge Patrice Thibodeau

Michael Thorpe

Harry Thurston

Kim Thúy

Miriam Toews

Patrick Toner

Susan Tooke

Carole Tremblay

Mara Tremblay

Maxine Tynes

Sylvia Tyson

Jane Urquhart

Hélène Vachon

Francesca Valente

Joe Velaidum

Marie-Hélène Vézina

Joe Vansickle

Guillaume Vigneault

Yolande Villemaire

Eleanor Wachtel

J.A. Wainwright

Germaine Warkentin

Lucy Waverman

Ian Weir

Alison Wearing

Darryl Whetter

Nancy Wilcox Richards

Budge Wilson

Jean Wilson

Yvonne Wilson

Martin Winckler

Frieda Wishinsky

Kathleen Winter

Meg Wolitzer

Natale Wynberg

Peter Yan

Jane Yealland

Cybèle Young

Nora Young

Northrop Frye and Moncton

Frye was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec. His father had owned a business in Sherbrooke but in 1919 the business failed and the family was without income or savings. In the fall of 1919 his father relocated his family to Moncton, where he began work as a commercial traveller. His mother was often depressed because of the family financial difficulties and because her oldest child, Howard, had been killed in the war. To her, Moncton was like an "exile."

Northrop Frye was seven years old when the family arrived in Moncton. He attended Victoria School and was quickly approved for Grade 4 because of his advanced reading ability. He attended junior high school in Sussex, New Brunswick and, at not quite 16 years of age he graduated from Moncton's Aberdeen High School near the top of his class. He loved bicycling the countryside around Moncton but his two main interests while in Moncton were his studies and piano. He studied piano with a very fine teacher, George Ross, and at one time thought of a career in music. He was a champion typist. His first romantic adventure was with a Moncton girl, Evelyn Rogers. But eventually his love of literature prevailed and in 1929 he left Moncton to study at the University of Toronto. His mother and father remained in Moncton. His mother died in 1941 and is buried in Moncton’s Elmwood Cemetery.

He famously described his early formal education as "a form of penal servitude" presided over by "a rabble of screaming and strapping spinsters."^[1] But he admitted late in life that his high school education was a good one. In 1990, after a brief and triumphant return to Moncton where he lectured at the University of Moncton and was the toast of the town, he said, "They were two of the best days of my life."^[2]

References

↑ Quoted in John Ayre, Northrop Frye: A Biography, Random House, 1989, p. 34
↑ Quoted in Reuben Cohen, A Time To Tell: The Public Life of a Public Man, Key Porter, 1998, p. 52

External links

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