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Wajdi Mouawad was born in Lebanon in 1968. Mouawad fled the war-torn country with his family; they lived in Paris for a few years, then settled in Montreal. In 1991, shortly after graduating from the National Theatre School, he embarked on a career as an actor, writer, director, and producer. In all his work, from his own plays—a dozen so far, including Journée de noces chez les Cromagnons (Wedding Day at the Cro-Magnons’), Littoral (Tideline), and Incendies (Scorched- which served as the basis for the Academy Award nominated film Incendies)—Wajdi Mouawad is guided by the central notion that “all art bears witness to human existence through the prism of beauty.” From 2000–2004 he was the artistic director of Montreal’s Théâtre de Quat’Sous; in 2005 he founded two companies specializing in the development of new work: Abé carré cé carré in Canada (with Emmanuel Schwartz), and Au carré de l’hypoténuse in France. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honours for his writing and directing, including the 2000 Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama (Littoral), the 2002 Chevalier de l’Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres (France) and the 2004 Prix de la Francophonie. He is currently Artistic Director of the National Arts Centre French Theatre.
Wajdi Mouawad spent his childhood in Lebanon, his adolescence in France, his young adult years in Québec, and he lives in France today. Since graduating from the National Theatre School of Canada in 1991, he has directed productions of contemporary and classical plays and of his own acclaimed plays and adaptations, including the quartet Le Sang des Promesses—Tideline, Scorched, Forests, and Heavens—and the cycle Domestique of Soeurs/Sisters, Mère/Mother, and Seuls. From 2000 to 2004, he was the artistic director of Théâtre de Quat’Sous in Montreal, then of the Théâtre français at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, from 2007 to 2012. In 2016 he directed Mozart’s Il Seraglio for the Opéra de Lyon, and Oedipus for the Opéra de Paris in 2021. He was named Artistic Director of La Colline—théâtre national in Paris in 2016, a position he will hold until 2027. He is also the author of the novel Anima, published to great acclaim in 2012.
Linda Gaboriau is an award-winning literary translator and dramaturg based in Montreal. She has translated over 150 plays and novels from the French. Her translations of works by Quebec’s most prominent playwrights have been published and produced across Canada and abroad. She has directed numerous translation residencies, and from 2002 to 2007 she was the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. Her drama translations have garnered many awards, including three Governor General’s Literary Awards for Translation. In 2015 she was named a member of the Order of Canada, and in 2023 an Officer of l’Ordre national du Québec.