The Frye Festival has announced a literary tribute celebrating the life and work of Acadian writer and scholar Antonine Maillet, who died on February 17 at the age of 95. The event will take place on May 4, 2025, at the  Université de Moncton on the final day of the 2025 festival, which runs from April 24 to May 4.

Conceptualized and written by the festival’s artistic director Georgette LeBlanc, Le grand Peut-Être “is a work imagined as an introductory course in literary creation” that is based on excerpts from Maillet’s Clin d’œil sur le temps qui passe and Mon Testament. It will be performed by actress Mélanie LeBlanc and is described as an “intimate, poetic text [that] explores the life and work of the writer.”

Planning for the tribute had already been underway to celebrate Maillet’s final book, Mon Testament (published in 2022 by Leméac Éditeur), in which she engaged with some of the characters she created over her 60-year career.

“For the Frye Festival, it was imperative to include [Maillet], at least one more time, in its programming,” says executive director Ariane Savoie. “Her commitment to the local literary community is a legacy that the Frye Festival team is ready to carry forward.”

Maillet appeared at the festival numerous times, including at the inaugural event in 1999, and her legacy, along with that of Northrop Frye, was the inspiration for the festival’s annual Maillet-Frye Lectures that started in 2006.

Born in Bouctouche, New Brunswick, in 1929, Maillet is one of the foremost figures of contemporary Acadian culture. She is the author of more than a dozen plays and almost 20 novels, and created iconic figures in Acadian literature, including La Sagouine, the eponymous Acadian charwoman of the 1971 play written in chiac, a patois of Acadian French.

Maillet was the first non-European recipient of the Prix Goncourt in 1979 for Pélagie-la-Charrette (Pélagie: The Return to Acadie), a novel about the return of Acadians from exile after the Great Disruption of 1755. She won the Governor General’s Award for literature in 1972 for Don l’Orignal (The Tale of Don L’Orignal), along with numerous other prizes, and was named a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Maillet’s work also encompassed writing for children and adapting and translating work, including that of Shakespeare and Shaw. She taught at several universities, including Université Laval and Université de Moncton – where she also served as chancellor from 1989 to 2000 – and also worked for Radio-Canada in Moncton as a scriptwriter and host. At the time of her death, Maillet was living in Montreal.