Born in Algeria and educated in France, Germany and Canada, Sylvie McClean came to Canada in 1960. She earned MA degrees from the Sorbonne and UBC. Living in Vancouver, she worked as a translator and wrote a biography of the founder of the University Women's Club of Vancouver called A Woman of Influence: Evlyn Fenwick Farris (Sono Nis, 1997).

"Why should we not have a share in procuring fairer laws for women than those adorning the statute books of British Columbia?" asked Evlyn Fenwick Farris in a 1909 speech. Farris (1878-1971), who founded the University Women's Club of Vancouver, was a major voice for women's issues, workers and children's rights, and instrumental in the election of the first Liberal government of British Columbia. Farris, a Maritimer by birth and education, grew up believing in educational equality. Her Baptist upbringing led her to see women as the helpmates of men, not as "feminists" working against them. 1-55039-074-0

[BCBW 2003] "Women"

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
A Woman of Influence: Evlyn Fenwick Farris