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list price: $10.99
edition:eBook
also available: Paperback
category: Fiction
published: May 2017
ISBN:9781988298078
publisher: Freehand Books

Winter Child

by Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau, translated by Susan Ouriou & Christelle Morelli

tagged: native american & aboriginal, literary
Description

A visceral, luminous novel about a Métis woman tracing the life and death of her son.

One late September day, amid the year’s first snowfall, the winter child is born. He does not breathe. His mother watches helplessly until “at least the baby uttered a first tentative croak like a frog unsure of spring’s arrival.”

Then again, and again, and again, the winter child narrowly avoids death’s reach. His mother knows “he would be her wound, she would have to battle to keep him with her, to defend him against the worst of all enemies.”

Originally published in French and told through alternating and overlapping memories, Winter Child is a powerful meditation on grief and life. With a poet and storyteller’s language, Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau traces a mother’s journey from devastation to strength, descending to the darkest inner depths, and finally finding the generosity of life and love.

About the Authors

Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau

Born in Jamésie in north-west Quebec, Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau is a multidisciplinary eeyou artist. For the past forty-four years, she has exhibited in Quebec, Canada, Europe and Mexico. Since 2007, she has published three novels, three collections of poetry, one storybook, one artist’s book and a collection of correspondence. In 2021, she was awarded a medal by Québec’s Assemblée nationale du Québec for her life’s work and in 2023 she was appointed as Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques. In 2024, the Université de Moncton granted her an honorary Doctor of Arts. Virginia still lives in Abitibi-Témiscamingue where she continues to paint, sculpt and, of course, write with the authenticity that characterizes all of her work.


Susan Ouriou

SUSAN OURIOU is an award-winning literary translator (French and Spanish to English) and fiction writer. She has been a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation on seven occasions, winning for her translation of Pieces of Me by Charlotte Gingras. She also translated Catherine Leroux's The Future, winner of 2024 CBC Canada Reads. Ouriou is also the author of two novels, Damselfish, and the critically acclaimed Nathan, and the editor of two anthologies, the trilingual Beyond Words: Translating the World and the bilingual Languages of Our Land: Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec. She lives in Calgary.


Christelle Morelli

SUSAN OURIOU is an award-winning literary translator (French and Spanish to English) and fiction writer. She has been a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation on seven occasions, winning for her translation of Pieces of Me by Charlotte Gingras. She also translated Catherine Leroux's The Future, winner of 2024 CBC Canada Reads. Ouriou is also the author of two novels, Damselfish, and the critically acclaimed Nathan, and the editor of two anthologies, the trilingual Beyond Words: Translating the World and the bilingual Languages of Our Land: Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec. She lives in Calgary.

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