Songs for the Cold of Heart by Éric Dupont

His fourth novel, La Fiancée américaine, released in 2012, won the Prix des libraires du Québec and the Prix littéraire des collégiens. He left his native Gaspé Peninsula at age 16 for Austria and other faraway locales, returning to Quebec in 2003 to accept a position as a lecturer in translation at the McGill University School of Continuing Studies. And the translation is as exquisite as a snowflake.' (Giller Prize jury)Įric Dupont was born in Amqui, Quebec, in 1970. 'As magnificent a work of irony and magic as the boldest works of Gabriel García Márquez, but with a wholly original sensibility that captures the marvellous obsessions of the Québécois zeitgeist of the 20th century. I dare you not to read the first three pages and fall in love.' (Heather O'Neill, jury member, 2018 Giller Prize) It reminded me of all the great French Canadian novels I read as a child, but pushed them to new, delightful, hilarious, epic levels. This book manages to capture the cultural zeitgeist of Quebec culture in the twentieth century. Heartbreaking and hilarious' (Publishers Weekly) original in every sense' (Literary Review of Canada) PRAISE FOR Eric Dupont's SONGS FOR THE COLD OF HEART 'Delightful' (Marie-Claude Fortin, La Presse) Brilliant and exhilarating.' (Suzanne Giguère, Le Devoir) The novelist casts his spell to rework historical events in a magical world, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, between centuries past and the year 2000.

'By turns caustic, fierce and moving, this sinuous novel is chock full of interwoven stories, comical scenes and larger-than-life, hilarious characters. The only daughter of Terese Ost (a fair-to-middling trade unionist and a first-rate Scrabble player), the fate that befalls Rosa is the focus of this tale of long journeys and longer lives, of impossible deaths, unwavering prophecies, and unsettling dreams as she leaves her village for Montreal on a quest to summon the westerly wind that has proved so vital to the local economy.įrom village gossips, tealeaf-reading exotic dancers, and Acadian red herrings to soothsaying winkles and centuries-old curses, Rosa's Very Own Personal Revolution is a delightful, boundary-pushing story about stories and the storytellers who make them - and a reminder that revolutions in Quebec aren't always quiet. Rosa Ost grows up in Notre-Dame-du-Cachalot, a tiny village at the end of the world, where two industries are king: paper and Boredom.

Songs for the Cold of Heart by Éric Dupont