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L'auteur traite du role primordial que joue le Manitoba dans l'imaginaire de l'illustre romanciere, Gabielle Roy. ... Read more

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Gabrielle Roy was one of the most prominent Canadian authors of the twentieth century. Joyce Marshall, an excellent writer herself, was one of Roy's English translators. The two shared a deep and long-lasting friendship based on a shared interest in language and writing. In Translation offers a critical examination of the more than two hundred letters exchanged by Roy and Marshall between 1959 and 1980.

In their letters, Roy and Marshall exchange news about their general health and well-being, their friends and family, their surroundings, their travels, and other writers, as well as their dealings with critics, editors, and publishers. They recount comical incidents and strange encounters in their lives, and reflect on human nature, current events, and, from time to time, their writing. Of particular interest to the two women were the problems they encountered during the translation process. Many passages in the letters concern the ways in which the nuances of language can be shaped through translation.

Editor Jane Everett has arranged the letters here in chronological order and has added critical notes to fill in the historical and literary gaps, as well as to identify various editorial problems. Shedding light on the process of writing and translating, In Translation is an invaluable addition to the study of Canadian writing and to the literature on these two important figures.

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In 1945, Gabrielle Roy skyrocketed to fame and fortune when her first novel, The Tin Flute, became an instant hit. Over 700,000 copies sold in the United States, and the book was awarded the prestigious Prix Fémina in France. In Canada, the praise for her work was unanimous in both French and English. In 1947, the book received the Governor General's Award. But Gabrielle Roy paid a high price for those heady days of glory: she spent thirty-two difficult years before she achieved another literary success. Through family and marital problems she clung to her vocation as a writer. ... Read more

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Despite the popularity and critical success Gabrielle Roy found as a writer, she lived a life often touched by sadness. In this definitive account of her life, François Ricard draws a penetrating and eloquent portrait that does full honour to his extraordinary subject. ... Read more

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Gabrielle Roy: Creation and Memory introduces readers to the complex, driven, and sensitive woman from the small town of Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, who won the hearts and minds of readers everywhere with her first novel, Bonheur d'Occasion (translated as The Tin Flute). The authors draw upon considerable resources to explore those aspects of Roy's life that account for the scope of her writing. They also examine in detail the roots of some of the major themes that inform her works: from Canada's rich and endangered multicultural heritage, to the ambivalent roles of progress and politics. This illustrated biography highlights three pivotal phases in Gabrielle Roy's life: her early years growing up and then teaching in Manitoba; her two-year stay in France and England in the late 1930s; and her return from Europe to live in Quebec. It was in this last period that Roy honed her craft and then, as she traveled across the country, learned about the Canada she came to describe in ways that altered the course of literary history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Best damn hockey story ever told aye?
Our "Roy Boy" was and is to this day the best beer drinkin, girley grabbin, goaly this sport of kings has ever seen. It's all here aye, the unplanned birth, life, and times of a hoser who asked for nothing but someone elses blood on the ice for a change. I only hope Gordon Lightfoot writes a ballad soon to accompany this bible. The writers put themselves into our fellas woolies. Only God himself could have pegged this dude so well aye? I hear the blades on the ice, the crouds booing, barkers in the stands calling out for peanuts, popcorn, Moose Head, and a French Quebec. Steal this book! To purchase would only insult the spirit of our boy, Roy, the best damn hockey player to glide into another player on purpose. Soon, THE MOVIE! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

So so
Hey! I read this book for school (I'm french so we had to read it)
anyway...it's quite boring but there are some good moments in it
so...if you don't like to read a french book...well...don't start with this one 'cus you won't want to read any other after
but if it isn't the first french book you read...you might find it interesting...depending on what kind of book you like...

Little Phrases
The book is divided into several chapters, parts of Gabrielle's life. None of the stories are perticularly spectacular, but the little phrases, sometimes captured in the English translation, can be profound. I found it easier to read if I bookmarked these phrases.

Les rue Deschambault
horrible book.Had to read it for french class.It is one of the worlds most boring book, second only to As for me and My House.I only came her to see if there was any info on the book, becasue i have to write acomposition on it.I definitely reccomend that you Not read this book.Itwould be a total waste of time.trust me.You will be sorry for wastingyour precious time. ... Read more

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The story of Where Nests the Water Hen is as pure as the lives of the people in it – and as unforgettable. Set in the remote wilderness of northern Manitoba, this sunny, tender idyll of daily frontier life captures, as few novels ever have, the spirit and the surroundings of the pioneers – not the adventurers and trailblazers who make the headlines, but rather the humble folk who follow after and remain, living out their lives in obscurity to keep the trails open.

Where Nests the Water Hen, Gabrielle Roy’s second novel, is a sensitive and sympathetic tale that captures both the innocence and the vitality of a sparsely populated frontier.


From the Paperback edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

There aren't enough books like this one
I read this novel when it turned up in a batch of old books someone passed along to us many years ago.It shares the quality of some of A. J. Cronin's novels, of seeming to be only a quiet story about obscure people, but lingering in the memory by virtue of the interest we feel in the characters.I'm delighted to see that it has been reissued. ... Read more

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Few writers portray the dignity of people trapped by poverty or emotional isolation as compassionately as Gabrielle Roy does in the four stories of western Canada that comprise Garden in the Wind. The effortless craft and poetic sensitivity evident in all her writing are here in full abundance as she recounts the stories of a tramp who belongs to no one, a Chinese immigrant struggling to fulfill his dream, Doukhobor settlers fired by a vision of a new land, and a lonely woman who nurtures her small but splendid garden. Imbued with a poignant simplicity, these are stories of sheer artistry.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderful Introduction to Gabrielle Roy's Work
This small collection of four pieces of short fiction (ranging from a short-story-like 10 pages to an almost novella-length 50) is an excellent introduction to the work of Gabrielle Roy, one of the most important figures in Canadian and French-Canadian literature of the 20th century.Against an often stark natural backdrop, Roy imbues her very human stories with enough warmth to get you through a winter in the Yukon.

What has always amazed and impressed me most about Roy is her ability to successfully maintain a tension, in her fiction, between the fact that her characters are so often uprooted or rootless and the fact that they have, despite this, a real sense of and feel for (and even love for) their setting.Immigrants, vagabonds, and wanderers all move restlessly across Roy's Canada, unable or unwilling to settle, and usually searching for some unobtainable rest.From different perspectives, Roy traces their wanderings with care and grace, and genuine sympathy.

My favorite piece here is "Where Will You Go, Sam Lee Wong?", which focusses on a recent Chinese immigrant to the Great White North, and narrates his difficulties planting himself and thriving in the harsh ground of his newly chosen world.A close second is "Hoodoo Valley," a brief glimpse of an entire community of new arrivals from Eastern Europe in search of a place in Canada that reminds them of their former home.

Bookending these two immigrant narratives are the first and final stories, including the title piece, which closes the book out in a beautiful way.The French title of the story (and thus of the collection) is "A Garden at the Edge of the World," which captures a little more bluntly what Roy does in this flourishing finish.In what is here called "A Garden in the Wind," Roy situates us at the border--recognizable but not absolute or permanent in any way--between the mapped and known and habitable and controllable Canada, and the endless sprawls of naked land that fan out in almost every direction.

In a strange way, then, Roy manages to make her Canada (she's from Manitoba) imaginable simultaneously as a center or final destination AND as the very marginal threshold of what is known.It's this willful and well-managed blend of opposites--of lovability and unlivability--that makes Roy's fiction such an interesting, moving and edifying read. ... Read more