Alicja Poznańska-Parizeau (1930-1990), Polish-Canadian writer, publicist and crime writer. She was one of the youngest participants in the Warsaw Uprising (awarded the Cross of Valour). After the war she went to Paris, where she studied at the Sorbonne, obtaining degrees in literature, law and political science. In 1955, she visited a friend from the Sorbonne in Quebec, where she signed a short contract that turned into a lifelong stay. Although she was a separatist, she is best known in Canada as a novelist and journalist: she wrote for Cité libre, La Presse, Châtelaine, Le Devoir, La Patrie and Maclean's. At the University of Montreal, she taught criminology. In her books she often returned to Polish themes, and for one of her last novels, Les lilas fleurissent à Varsovie (Lilacs bloom in Warsaw), she was awarded first prize in a competition of the Association of French Language Writers in Paris. In 1987, she was honoured with the Order of Canada (Member) by the Governor General (representative of the British Crown in Canada), which was hailed as a "great scandal" in separatist Quebec.