Thibault Jacquot-Paratte | |
|---|---|
 Thibault Jacquot-Paratte at the 2018 Francofest Halifax Book Fair | |
| Born | March 10, 1993 Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Occupation | Writer, musician |
| Nationality | Canadian, French |
| Alma mater | Sorbonne University, University of Tromsø, University of Vaasa |
| Period | 2010–present |
| Spouse | Augustė Jasiulytė |
Thibault Jacquot-Paratte is an Acadian writer and musician, born in Kentville, Nova Scotia, of Franco-Swiss parentage. He writes both in French and English.
Raised in the minority Francophone community of the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, Thibault Jacquot-Paratte started performing songs and reading publicly as a teenager. During that time, he was also active with different local organizations, among which the provincial youth council (Conseil Jeunesse Provincial), [1] [2] which in 2010 invited him as their official poet during the annual assembly of the Acadian Federation of Nova Scotia. He notably organized, along with LGBTQ+ activist Charles MacDougall, bi-monthly French-language poetry readings at Greenwood's Tan Café during the years 2010–2011, as well as free performances in Stronach Park, in Kingston, NS. [3] In 2011, he received the Frog prize at the Frogstock music competition in Pomquet, NS, [4] and was chosen as a representative of the francophone community at the 2011 International day for the elimination of racism, broadcast live from the Mi’Kmaw Native Friendship Center, in Halifax. [5] During this time, he also played with different bands, such as Zenass, and frequently shared the stage with composer Gavin Fraser and recording artist Jonah Richard Guimond. [6] [7]
After an internship at the Fondation AfricAvenir international / Exchange and dialogue in Bonabéri, Cameroon, and extensive travelling, he was admitted to study Scandinavian studies at the Sorbonne. [8] [9] In 2012 he was invited by the feminist journal Le Pan Poétique des Muses to participate to a public reading at the University of Paris III, as part of the Printemps des poètes (“Poets spring” – an annual event across France). [10] [11] He was also able to participate in the Greek theatre troupe Démodocos. After completing his bachelor's in 2015, he received a CIMO scholarship to follow a summer program at the University of Vaasa. He studied for a year at the Arctic University in Tromsø, and received another scholarship to study in a summer program at the Askov Folkehøjskole, before returning to Paris in order to complete his master's (2017).
During the winter of 2016–2017, his first three plays were published in French. In 2017, he received another scholarship to complete a fall semester at the Askov Folkehøjskole, where he completed a student film, Tallinn, hvor smuk du er with Augustė Jasiulytė.
After returning to Canada, he worked as coordinator for Oui 98.5 FM in Halifax, where he also hosted the show Les blues du lundi (“The Monday blues”) under the assumed name Vieux bluesman John MacMachin Graisse-de-bine. [12]
In the spring of 2019, he was a semi-finalist in the Caraquet song contest, and a finalist at the Scène Stella song contest in Nova Scotia. In the summer of 2019, he was selected by the National Acadian society to be Pavilion Poet at the 2019 Acadian World Congress. [13] Later in 2019, he was hired by the Théâtre DesAssimilés to direct and translate his own play, Les mangeurs d’ail (The garlic eaters) in a bilingual (French-English) premier. [14] [15]
In the fall of 2020, his poetry collection Cries of somewhere’s soil was released, and stimulated mediatic discussions about English-language Acadian literature. [16] [17] This was followed by a miscellaneous containing poetry and short prose, Souvenirs et Fragments in 2022. His novel A dream is a notion of, which had reportedly already been circulating through unofficial distributors, was also published in 2022. [18] In 2022 he co-directed Il y a des bombes qui tombent sur Kyiv, anthologie pour la paix with photographer Charlotte Lakits, a charity anthology to raise funds for Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees, as a result of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. [19]