The Green Chamber

Martine Desjardins was born in the town of Mount Royal, Quebec, in 1957. The second child of six, she started writing short stories when she was seventeen. After receiving a bachelor's degree in Russian and Italian studies at the University of Montreal, she went on to complete a master's degree in comparative literature, exploring humour in Dostoevsky's The Devils. She worked as an assistant editor-in-chief at ELLE Québec magazine and, for ten years, was book reviewer for L'actualité, an award-winning French-language current affairs magazine in Canada. Her first novel, Le cercle de Clara, was nominated for the Prix littéraires du Québec in 1998. She was awarded the Prix Ringuet for L'évocation in 2006, and the Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic for Maleficium in 2013. She received the Prix Jacques-Brossard de la science-fiction et du fantastique for Maleficium in 2010, and again for La chambre verte in 2017. Desjardins currently lives in the town of Mount Royal with her fox-terrier Winnie.