Franç ois Ricard has been a professor of French literature at McGill University since 1971. His collection of essays on contemporary literature, La litté rature contre elle-mê me, won the Governor General's Award in Canada. His writing about the work of Milan Kundera has been published in literary periodicals in the United States, France, Italy, and Canada. Agnè s's Final Afternoon, already published in France, will also appear in Great Britain, the Netherlands, and China.