Fences in Breathing

by Nicole Brossard, translated by Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood

tagged: literary

Description

Invited to a quiet Swiss chÃ¢teau by the enigmatic Tatiana Beaujeu Lehmann, Anne begins to slowly write a novel in a language that is not hers, a language that makes meaning foreign and keeps her alert to the world and its fiery horizon. Will the strange intoxication that takes hold of her and her characters – sculptor Charles; his sister Kim, about to leave for the Arctic; Kim’s love, June, owner of a video store; and Laure Ravin, a lawyer obsessed with the Patriot Act – allow her to break through the darkness of the world

Fences in Breathing, first published and critically lauded in French as La capture du sombre, is a disquieting, dexterous, and defiant missive, another triumph by one of North America’s foremost practitioners of innovative writing.

About the Authors

Nicole Brossard

Two-time Governor General’s Award winner for her poetry, Nicole Brossard has published more than thirty books of poetry, fiction, and essays since 1965. She has co-founded and co-directed the literary magazine La Barre du Jour (1965-1975), co-directed the film Some American Feminists (1976), and co-edited the acclaimed Anthologie de la poésie des femmes au Québec (1991 and 2003). Her work has been widely translated into English and Spanish and is also available in many other languages. Nicole has won numerous awards, including winning the Trois-Rivières International Poetry Festival Grand Prix Québecor in 1989 and 1999, the Prix Athanase-David in 1991, and the the first Violet Prize awarded by the Blue Metropolis Festival in 2018. One of her novels, Mauve Desert, has been presented as a multidisciplinary creation in 2018 and is slated for an opera adaptation in 2020-21. She is an officer of the Order of Canada, chevalière of the National Order of Quebec, and a member of l’Académie des lettres du Québec. Nicole currently lives in Montreal.

Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood

Contributor Notes

Nicole Brossard is a poet, novelist and essayist who has published more than thirty books since 1965, including These Our Mothers, Lovhers, Mauve Desert and Baroque at Dawn. She co-founded La Barre du Jour and La Nouvelle Barre du Jour, two important literary journals in Quebec. She has won two Governor General's Awards for poetry, as well as le Prix Athanase-David and the Canada Council's Molson Prize. Her work has been translated into several languages. She lives in Montreal.

Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood is the author of Rebelle et infidèle/The Body Bilingual. She has translated many works of theory and fiction into French and English, including Brossard's Mauve Desert and She Would Be the First Sentence of My Next Novel.

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