Agnes Whitfield grew up in Peterborough, Ontario, and has lived for many years in Montreal. She holds a doctorate in Québec literature from Laval University, and teaches Canadian literature at York University. She writes in both French and English. Predominantly known as a Canadian francophone poet, Whitfield has been considered a cultural “transfuge.” Her creative works in French challenge stultified thinking around important contemporary issues, such as the English-French Canadian constitutional impasse (Ô cher Émile je t'aime ou l'heureuse mort d'une Gorgone anglaise racontée par sa fille, Le Nordir, 1993; Où dansent les nénuphars, Le Nordir, 1995), the gender divide (Et si les sirènes ne chantaient plus, Écrits des Forges, 2001), and more recently the role of poetry in a world determinedly moving towards destruction (Où te tiens-tu, poète, Éditions du Sémaphore, 2021). As an academic, Whitfield has published extensively on Canadian and Québec fiction, women’s life writing, translation theory, and pedagogy. As a literary translator she was shortlisted in 1991 for the Governor-General’s Award in the Translation category for Divine Diva (Coach House Press), her English-language rendition of Quebec author Daniel Gagnon’s poetic novel, Venite a Cantare. Whitfield has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna and the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Seagram Chair in Canadian Studies at McGill University and Joint Chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. In 2011, she founded Vita Traductiva, an international peer-reviewed Translation Studies publication series (https://vitatraductiva.blog.yorku.ca/). An ardent defender of francophone minority rights in Canada, she has published numerous opinion pieces in The Lawyer's Daily on access to justice issues. In 2024, her volume of surrealist poetry, Life immediate. Putterings for Éluard, received an honourable mention for the James Tate Poetry Prize.