At only 22 years old, the young Quebecer of Haitian origin, Harantxa Jean, has been admitted to Columbia University for doctoral studies in French and Francophone literature. It marks another major step for someone who, a few years earlier, had already entered McGill University—ranked first and second, respectively, among Canada’s best universities by the QS World University Rankings 2027 and the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026—where she earned her bachelor’s degree in 2026.

The young Quebecer’s new academic adventure in New York, which will last five or six years, will begin in September 2026. Behind this new stage, which the young woman says she is approaching “with great humility,” lies a path built over the years, the result of a brilliant academic journey that began in childhood and has been marked by several distinctions, which she recounts with simplicity.