Claude Tatilon left us on Saturday, April 27; he was at home, surrounded by his family. A few days earlier he had reread the proofs of his most recent novel, Une fleur au fusil (Éditions du Gref).
Not only have we lost a linguist, translator, writer and educator but also – and especially – a friend who was unfailingly warm, kind, sensitive and full of humour. His was a “sidelong” humour that lightened the tone of his courses and encounters, allowing us to put all of life’s difficulties back into perspective. It was humour often tinged with that light irony which he tirelessly exploited to uncover whatever bits of wisdom or elegance might be hiding beneath the surface. Like Georges Brassens, for whom he had such great admiration, Tatilon had a pleasing way of taming the fickleness of the soul and the seriousness of words. Indeed, he himself was also a lover of words, the music of words and the mischievous twists and turns that words take – just as he loved and shared life’s pleasures in all modesty with those around him.
Marseilles, Provence, the sun, the accent – these, too, were Claude. We all treasured his loyalty to his Marseilles roots and his teachers, such as Georges Mounin, the director of his doctoral thesis and a close contact until his death in 1993. (He even enjoyed engaging in a dialogue with Mounin in Une fleur au fusil.)
When he came to Glendon’s Department of French Studies in 1972, Tatilon quickly devoted himself to establishing a translation course; this was followed by a B.A. Program in Translation in 1979, which soon became the School of Translation (in keeping with established naming conventions). Always deeply involved in Glendon’s academic life, he organized international colloquia, including the 14th International Colloquium of Functional Linguistics in 2000, which introduced Canadian linguists to the activities and ideas of the French functionalists with whom he worked throughout his life under the aegis of André Martinet. Tatilon was also the Director of the MA Program in Translation and head of the Department of French Studies at Glendon.
We are further indebted to Tatilon for numerous articles and several scientific works. These include Sonorités et Texte poétique [Sonorities and Poetic Text] (1976); Traduire : pour une pédagogie de la traduction [Translation: Towards a Pedagogy of Translation] (Gref, 1987); Écrire le paragraphe [Paragraph Writing] (Gref, 1997); and a collection of texts by Georges Mounin entitled Travaux pratiques de sémiologie générale [Practical Work in General Semiology] (Gref, 1994).
Tatilon also published a large number of translations in such varied fields as fine arts, literature and advertising. His most recent work was his translation of Henry Schogt’s book Le Rideau (1939-1945) : souvenirs des années de guerre dans la Hollande occupée [The Curtain, 1939-1945. Witness and Memory in Wartime Holland].
Finally, Tatilon was the author of four novels: Helena (1991; reissued in 2007); Les Portugaises ensablées (2001; a finalist for Radio-Canada’s Prix des lecteurs); and La soupe au pistou (2009; winner of the Christine-Dumitriu-Van-Saanen literary award in 2010; published in English as A Pinch of Time, 2010). His last novel, Une fleur au fusil, is currently in press at Éditions du Gref, Glendon’s French-language publishing house. Publication of this work is made possible thanks to his many friends, colleagues and students who found this a fitting way to express their affection and admiration for ClaudeTatilon.
