Bio

Photo credits: Amélie Philibert

Chantal Ringuet

a poetics of thread and language

tracing the marks of memory through cities, archives, and textiles

Chantal Ringuet is a writer, poet, and literary translator whose work lies at the intersections of literature, cultural archives, and research-creation. Through writing, she explores cities and landscapes, languages and archives, following the sensitive traces of lived histories. Her work has received several literary distinctions.

Trained in literature (Ph.D.) and philosophy, she has devoted a significant part of her research to women’s voices, Jewish culture, Yiddish, and diasporic archives. Following a doctoral dissertation in literary studies on issues of filiation in the novels of Quebec writers Anne Hébert, Madeleine Gagnon, and Suzanne Jacob, she developed an interdisciplinary approach in literary and cultural studies, engaging with the works of Rachel Korn, Kadia Molodowsky, Adrienne Rich, Marc Chagall, and Leonard Cohen, as well as with urban landscapes where communities, languages, and narratives intersect. Her essays and creative projects explore how language can reveal the invisible strata of cultural and historical experience and translate the passages between languages, cultures, and memories.

As a poet, she is the author of four collections, including Forêt en chambre (Éditions du Noroît, 2022) and Sans toi, jusqu’à la cime des arbres (L’ail des ours, 2025). She also developed, in collaboration with the Université de Montréal and the Société de transport de Montréal, the research-creation project Montreal, City of Women, which revisits the cartography of the Montreal metro through the trajectories of influential women and examines how cities narrate themselves through absent or marginalized voices.

At the heart of her work lies a sustained attention to the power of language and to sensitive forms of transmission. In her practice, thread and fabric become extensions of the text, revealing the gestures through which stories are transmitted.

She was born in Quebec City and after spending much of her life in Montreal, she now lives in the Eastern Townships, where she serves as the Quebec Writers’ Federation representative for the region.

Interviews

Two-Axe Earley, Cree part of a metro project (Olivier Cadotte), The Eastern Door, March 2025.

Montreal Metro map reimagined to mark International Women's Day, CBC, March 7, 2025.

In Conversation with Chantal Ringuet, Faculty of Arts, McGill, 2024.

Chantal Ringuet Reyjavik City of Literature's Writer in Residence 2019.

I'm Your Man: Leonard Cohen Authors Roundtable at the Jewish Museum, New York, 2019.

The Translator Relay, Words Without Borders, 2019.

Interview When Translation Becomes Homage, Words Without Borders, 2018.