Laurence Leduc-Primeau, In the End They Told Them All to Get Lost, translated by Natalia Hero, is published by QC Fiction of Québec this month – my thanks to them for this ARC. It’s not their strongest title in what’s been … Continue reading
Charles Quimper, In Every Wave. QC Fiction, available from 1 November 2018. First published 2017 as Marée montante In a recent interview in the online magazine Québec Reads Charles Quimper was asked: What, if anything, would you say defines Quebec … Continue reading
Just been into town for the last time before a trip to Catalonia, and couldn’t resist the allure of the books in charity shops. Here’s what I came back with: … Continue reading
Eric Dupont, Songs for the Cold of Heart. QC Fiction (an imprint of Baraka Books). Paperback. Published 1 July, 2018. First published in French as La Fiancée américaine by Marchand de feuilles. Translated by Peter McCambridge On the first page … Continue reading
Who writes letters any more? It’s a pity so many of us don’t. An inherited box of letters provides the McGuffin for this novel. No one nowadays will be able to reconstruct a history and be transformed as a consequence, … Continue reading
A character says in the story ‘Couch’: ‘Life isn’t supposed to hurt all the time.’ My previous post gave an introduction/background to this collection of 37 very short stories by two authors, but translated by 37 different translators. The identity … Continue reading
I Never Talk About It: QC Fiction, 2017. First published in 2012 as Chaque automne j’ai envie de mourir by Les éditions du Septentrion ‘Traduttore, traditore’. Most books of translated fiction foreground (not surprisingly) the original author; the translator – if they’re even … Continue reading
Pierre-Luc Landry, Listening For Jupiter. QC Fiction, June 2017. Xavier’s sections translated from the French by Arielle Aaronson; Hollywood’s by Madeleine Stratford. I enjoyed Quebec publisher QC Fiction’s The Brothers (reviewed here); Listening for Jupiter by Pierre-Luc Landry – out next … Continue reading
Berserkers went into battle, according to some sagas and skaldic poems, wearing pelts of animals (the ‘ber’ element may signify ‘bear’; ‘serk’ is a Germanic term for shirt): they thus took on the ferocity of the beasts metonymically. This concept … Continue reading
We’re going to see the new Baz Luhrman film ‘The Great Gatsby’ tonight (there’s a Guardian review of its opening screening at Cannes here, so finding myself in Waterstone’s this morning (I believe they’ve dropped the apostrophe, but never mind) I … Continue reading