Joël Champetier (1957-2015)

Joël Champetier in 2012. Photo by Ewe Aya.

Joël Champetier in 2012. Photo by Ewe Aya.

Joël Champetier, managing editor of Canada’s famous French-language sf, fantasy and horror quarterly Solaris, passed away May 30.

Champetier’s first published work, Le chemin des fleurs, appeared in Solaris in 1981. His first YA novel, La mer au fond du monde, was published in 1990. The best of his short fiction was collected in Coeur de fer (1997).

Champetier’s novel La peau blanche was adapted into a 2004 film of the same title, also released in English as White Skin.

La Peau Blanch posterChampetier helped organize Quebec’s annual Boréal Congress, an annual Quebec science-fiction conference. He was on the board of directors in 1984, and again from 1989-1999, then serving as Vice-President from 1994 to 1999.

He won numerous Prix Boreal/Prix Casper/Prix Aurora Awards for fiction, as well as a 1995 Grand Prize for Quebec Science Fiction and Fantasy, for La mémoire du lac, Le secret des sylvaneaux, Visite au comptoir dénébolien and Esclave du sable. Solaris also won several of these awards during his tenure.

He is survived by his wife Valerie and his family.